Angelo Brandelli is the first scholar from a Latin American university to receive this international recognition
Photo: Bruno Todeschini
Professor Dr Angelo Brandelli Costa, from the School of Health Sciences, was awarded the Association for Psychological Science’s rising star designation. He is the first representative of a Latin American university to receive this international recognition. The Rising Star designation recognizes Psychology scientists in the earliest stages of their research careers whose innovative work has already advanced the field and signals great potential for their continued contributions. Individuals being considered for Rising Star designation will be evaluated in view of their significant publications, significant discoveries, methodological innovations and theoretical or empirical contributions.
Innovative studies
Brandelli, who coordinates the Prejudice, Vulnerability and Psychosocial Processes Research Group, of the Graduate Program in Psychology, has developed a pioneering method to assess sexual and gender diversity discrimination, adapted to the Brazilian context, based on empirical studies in the area. Besides, his research has produced innovative large scale findings to assess this type of discrimination and to design a type of intervention validated in Brazil in order to combat sexual and gender diversity discrimination among health care professionals. In an attempt to work with individuals who have been discriminated against, he took part in the first project that sought to test the applicability of the minority stress model, that is, the impact of discrimination on the victims’ mental health, in a non US sample. In other works, he suggested the implementation of a biomarker panel to assess discrimination suffered every day by the transgender population.
A consultant in several organizations
Brandelli and his students have won several awards for these projects. He has served as a consultant of the Pan American Health Organization (Opas) with the Ministry of Health HIV/Aids Interfederative Cooperation for Rio Grande do Sul. Additionally, he has provided assistance to the UN Program for Development , under the Programa HIV e as Cidades, of the Municipal Department of Health of Porto Alegre, and the The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco), for the Violence Prevention Program, with the Department of Health of Rio Grande do Sul, as he coordinated the design of a State Health Policy for the LGBT population. Today he works for the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (Unaids) in the conduction of an investigation on the stigma associated with HIV+ individuals.
