Scientific Leadership and Honours
Dr. Chagas Filho played a significant role as international leader and representative of Brazilian science abroad. He was a Brazilian delegate and ambassador (1966) to UNESCO in Paris, and member of the Research Council of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), in Washington, DC. At the United Nations he was president of the Special Committee for the Application of Science and Technology to Development. Together with Nobel Prize winner, physicist Abdus Salam (1926–1996), he founded the Interrnational Federation of Institutes for Advanced Sciences (IFIAS).
In 1972, he was appointed by Pope Paul VI to the presidency of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, which he occupied until 1989. During his tenure, he was distinguished with the historical task of rehabilitating Galileo Galilei by the Roman Catholic Church and with coordinating a study of the historical and scientific validity of the Turin shroud. He was deeply religious and sought to reconcile science and religion as best as possible. Thus, he led the Academy of Sciences through a number of important meetings and publications, examining controversial issues such as the brain and conscience, and attracting great scientific personalities to the Academy, including a number of Nobel awardees.
In Brazil he was a member, vice-president and president of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences (1941–2000) and member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters (1974–2000), a member of the National Research Council and one of the founders and member of the Brazilian Society for the Advancement of Science.
Carlos Chagas Filho was awarded with 16 titles of Honoris Causa Doctor in many national and foreign universities, and 19 decorations, including that of Légion d'Honneur (1979) and the Brazilian Order of Scientific Merit. He was a member of the French Académie des Sciences and Académie Nationale de Médecine, Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Philosophical Academy, Royal Academy of Belgium, Romenian Academy of Sciences and the International Academy of the History of Sciences.
Among his many scientific awards, he received the Moinho Santista Science Prize (1960); the Prêmio Álvaro Alberto para a Ciência e Tecnologia (1988); and the Prix mondial Cino Del Duca, by the Fondation Simone et Cino Del Duca, France (1989)
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