page_title: Science and technology in Venezuela
section_title: Electro-chemistry
hierarchical_section_title: Science and technology in Venezuela / Chemistry / Electro-chemistry
caption_attribution_description: Español: Benjamín Rubén Scharifker Podolsky, rector de la Unimet, ex rector USB
context_page_description: Science and technology in Venezuela includes research based on exploring Venezuela's diverse ecology and the lives of its indigenous peoples.
  Under the Spanish rule, the monarchy made very little effort to promote education in the American colonies and in particular in those in which they had less commercial interest, as in Venezuela. The country only had its first university some two hundred years later than Mexico, Colombia or Peru.
  The first studies on the native languages of Venezuela and the indigenous customs were made in the middle of the XVIII century by the Catholic missionaries. The Jesuits Joseph Gumilla and Filippo Salvatore Gilii were the first to theorize about linguistic relations and propose possible language families for the Orinoco river basin. The Swedish botanist Pehr Löfling, one of the 12 Apostles of Carl Linnaeus, classificated for the first time the exhuberant tropical flora of the Orinoco river basin.
context_section_description: Benjamín Scharifker Podolsky (born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, September 21, 1953).  Sharifker migrated with his Jewish family to Venezuela when he was 4 years old. Graduated in Chemistry from the Universidad Simón Bolívar (1976) had a PhD in Physicochemistry from the University of Southampton (1980). Professor Emeritus of Simón Bolívar University, where he was head of the Department of Chemistry (1987–1989), Dean of Research and Development (1992–1996), Vice-Rector of Administration (2001–2005) and Rector (2005–2009). Coordinator of the Nuclei of Scientific, Humanistic and Technological Development Councils (1994–1996). Deputy Director of the Hydrogen Research Center at Texas A & M University (1984–1986). Visiting Professor at the Universities of Southampton (1988) and Bristol (2009). Director of National Council for Scientific and Technological Research (1994–1999). Secretary General, Caracas Chapter, Venezuelan Association for the Advancement of Science (2001).
  His investigation lines interest is interfacial electrochemistry, including kinetics of electrochemical reactions, phase formation, conducting polymers, energy conversion and environmental sanitation. Author of more than one hundred publications in the international scientific literature and three patents of invention registered in several countries. He has received, among other awards, the Tajima Award from the International Society of Electrochemistry (1986), Lorenzo Mendoza Fleury Award from the Empresas Polar Foundation (1993). Number Individual of the Academy of Physical, Mathematical and Natural Sciences (since 2003, president 2009–2011). Member of the Academy of Sciences of Latin America (since 2003). Fellow of the Academy of Sciences of the Developing World (TWAS, since 2009). Vice-Rector Academic (2010) and Rector (since 2011) of the Metropolitan University, Caracas.
caption: Benjamin Sharifker
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