Donald Pierson

He obtained his doctorate in 1939, with the thesis entitled “A study of racial and cultural adjustment in Bahia, Brazil” – developed during his stay in Salvador (BA), from 1935 to 1937 – at the University of Chicago (USA), published in Portuguese in the form of a book in 1945, under the title “Whites and blacks in Bahia”.

Still in 1939, he returned to Brazil to work as a professor of Sociology and Social Anthropology at the then Free School of Sociology and Politics of São Paulo, where he remained until 1959.

He was one of the pioneers in the theoretical and methodological study of race relations in Brazil.

On January 15, 1993, he became the 15th professor emeritus at FFLCH USP.

He passed away in 1995, in Florida (USA).