Professor Álvaro Prata, former rector of UFSC (2008-2012) and former secretary of Technology and Innovation of the Ministry of Science and Technology (2012-2014), will succeeded Professor Cláudio Melo, who passed last week, in the direction of Polo - Research Laboratories for Emerging Technologies in Refrigeration and Thermophysics. The professor has been in UFSC for 41 years, was one of Polo's the idealizers and leaders, is a researcher 1A of CNPQ and member of the National Academy of Engineering and the Brazilian Academy of Sciences.