His extensive training and contribution to the scientific activity of Lanzarote have made Ricardo Vieira worthy of the Gold Medal of the Island, which is awarded by the Maximum Institution. The distinction is based on the "interest in developing research in Lanzarote, attracting investments, scientific groups and institutional collaborations" that the Sevillian scientist has demonstrated, in the positions held.
During this last stage, Ricardo has been involved, together with other prestigious members of the CSIC, such as Vicente Araña, in the consolidation and activities of the Casa de los Volcanes of the Cabildo de Lanzarote, Scientific, Cultural and Didactic Center, actively participating in the different international training courses for specialists and in the design and execution of the different exhibition elements of the center.
Currently, he chairs the National Commission of Geodesy and Geophysics and has also held positions in the Directorate of the Institute of Astronomy and Geodesy / CISC-UCM, he has been vice president of the European Center for Geodesy and Seismology, and secretary of the National Commission of the ICSU (International Council for Science).
Ricardo Vieira Díaz
He was born in Seville on May 20, 1941. From a large family (8 siblings), his father, an industrialist, moved to Cádiz when Ricardo was 6 years old. There he attended secondary school at the Colegio de los Marianistas where a physics teacher conveyed his enthusiasm for this subject, although his primary inclination was medicine. He moved to Madrid to begin his studies in Physical Sciences and at the Complutense University he came into contact with leading scientists such as his teachers Luis Brú and José Aguilar (then a young professor), also enjoying the last teaching year of Julio Palacios.
He began his doctorate, directed by Professor José María Torroja, on the subject of satellites, but even with the work being very advanced, he changed his line of research towards the study of earth tides, which delayed the defense of his doctoral thesis by a decade, which he completed with the highest honors in 1982.
By this time, his already recognized research work had allowed him to win a position as a collaborator on the staff of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (1971) where he had been researching as a contractor since 1967, the date on which he also began his teaching duties as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Astronomy and Geodesy at the Complutense University of Madrid.
The intense work and dedication allowed him to join the European groups in his specialty, which at that time were led by personalities such as Professor Paul. Melchior, director of the Royal Observatory of Brussels and father of research on earth tides, or Professor Helmut Moritz, an Austrian philosopher-mathematician, number one in European geodesy, with whom he ended up establishing a close friendship. In the international field, the close contact and fruitful collaboration he has maintained with the most accredited scientists in his specialty stands out.
Vieira's scientific work is synthesized in three stages: Spatial Geodesy (1967 -1972), where the deployment and observations in Spain and the Europe-Africa connections stand out; Earth Tides (1971- 1986), focused on the Iberian Network of 26 stations and the measurements of the vertical component of gravity; and Geodynamics Laboratory of Lanzarote (1986? 2006) with numerous works in the Canary Islands and Azores.