Graziela Barroso is one of those honored by the Correios collection “Pioneering Women of Brazilian Sciences”

Abotanist Graziela Maciel Barroso, one of the first women to stand out in the scientific world in Brazil, is one of seven scientists honored by the Post Office with a special collection of postage stamps. The 'Women Pioneers of Brazilian Science' collection went into circulation on November 24th, in celebration of World Science Day, and depicts, in addition to Graziela Barroso, scientists Bertha Lutz, Carolina Bori, Enedina Alves Marques, Marcia Barbosa, Maria Deane and Sonia Guimarães.

The first woman to apply to the Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden in the 1940s, Graziela Barroso is the author of “Sistemática de angiospermas do Brasil”, an international reference on the subject. Among other awards, she received the Botany of the Millennium Medal (1999).

The Post Office issue consists of seven stamps that follow the same visual identity: the face of each scientist framed by the “mirror of Venus”, an icon that symbolizes the female gender. Their names appear prominently, arranged on different planes between the other graphic elements, overlapping each other, as if each stamp were a small poster. Boosting female strength in areas previously occupied by men, the background is made up of a grid also inspired by the symbol of women.

To represent part of each scientist's achievements, images related to their work were used. On Graziela Barroso's stamp, the predominant color is green, and there are illustrations of botanical elements, objects of her research, and among them the species Dorstenia grazielae. In José Carlos Braga's artwork, the techniques used were graphite illustration, vector illustration and digital painting.

Each of the stamps has a print run of 96,000 units - each sheet contains 12 - and the face value is 1st postage. They are available in the online store and by ordering from post offices.

Graziela Maciel Barroso was born in Corumbá (MS) on April 11, 1912. Contrary to the gender conventions of the time, Graziela was hired as a naturalist at the Botanical Garden in 1946. From then on, she began her professional activities in the area of Plant Systematics, mainly in the Taxonomy line, which aims to scientifically identify plants, and in Morphology. 

The researcher worked intensively for around 60 years in botany, and contributed to the training of botanists who worked and still work in different places in Brazil. Shortly before her death in 2003, she was elected to the Brazilian Academy of Sciences, but the award was post-mortem. More than 25 plant species are named after her, such as Diatenopteryx grazielae.