Neuma Aguiar | |
|---|---|
 Aguiar in 1963 | |
| Born | Neuma Figueiredo de Aguiar 11 September 1938 |
| Died | 1 October 2023 (aged 85) |
| Other names | Neuma Aguiar Walker |
| Occupation(s) | Sociologist, women's studies scholar |
Neuma Aguiar (11 September 1938-1 October 2023) was a Brazilian sociologist and one of the women who introduced women's studies in the country. After earning her undergraduate degree at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro in 1960, she completed a master's degree in sociology and anthropology at Boston University and a PhD at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Returning to Brazil, from 1972 to 1996 she worked at the Instituto Universitário de Pesquisas do Rio de Janeiro, the research institute of the Universidade Candido Mendes. From 1978, she taught a women's study course at the institute, which mainly focused on women's impact on the economy. Between 1996 and 2008, she was a full professor at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, both teaching women's studies and directing the Center for Quantitative Research in Social Sciences.
Aguiar was a founding member of the transnational feminist network, Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN) and served as its highest officer from 1986 to 1990. She was granted an honorary doctorate in 2003, from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and in 2007 was awarded both the Vinícius Caldeira Brant Prize from the Federal University of Minas Gerais and the Florestan Fernandes Prize of the Brazilian Society of Sociology. Along with other feminist pioneers, she was honored with the Rose Marie Muraro Prize by the federal Secretariat for Women's Policies and the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development in 2014.