Lies on resumes becoming the new norm in Brazil

In August of last year, Brazilians were enchanted by the story of chemistry professor Joana D’Arc. Brought up in a poor family in the countryside of São Paulo, she studied hard and was accepted into higher education at the age of 14. She continued climbing the ladder, obtaining a Ph.D. from the University of Campinas and a postdoc from Harvard, before transforming a simple technical college in the town of Franca into a center of scientific innovation, with 15 registered patents. Her story was total feelgood material, and there were even talks of her life being adapted into a feature film.

But then it all came out. Earlier this month, newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo revealed that Ms. D’Arc had lied on her résumé, and that she had not in fact gone to Harvard for postdoctoral research. Other newspapers went deeper, and discovered that Harvard was the tip of the iceberg. The professor also lied about her age, debunking her claim that she was accepted into university at 14—she was, in fact, 19 years of age at the time.

What’s more, the 15 patents she claimed to hold had not actually been registered....