A vision beyond the sports world
After a track season cut short by COVID-19, Rice’s Carvalho embraces Fulbright honor
Former Rice runner Adolfo Carvalho embraces wonder of exploration.
It can be a world of chaos, violence and constant negativity.
It can be a world of beauty, wonder and constant exploration.
Adolfo Carvalho is embracing the wonder of exploration.
During a time when the sports world was forced to hit a hard pause because of the coronavirus pandemic, the former senior captain for Rice’s track and cross country teams received a Fulbright Fellowship. After five years blending astrophysics and athletics at Rice, the 23-year-old plans to travel to Chile in March 2021 to study protoplanetary disks.
“The more we understand about the universe, the more I understand about, on a smaller scale, the young star system and then how planets form,” Carvalho said.
Even simple things with the former Owls runner are interesting.
Ask Carvalho where he is from and you get this.
“That’s always a tricky question,” he said, laughing.
Born in Brazil. Lived in Oxford, Miss., and Baltimore. Then Rice University, which provided Carvalho with everything he was hoping and searching for.
“Rice had a perfect combination of athletics and academics,” Carvalho said. “I’ve always really valued that.”
In the sports world, the daily story has been the same far too often. A professional league spending months debating how and when to return. Another college athlete whose amateur career suddenly ended or was instantly altered when the sports world was frozen.
Carvalho decided to leave his sport behind.
There was frustration in that decision.
There also was inspiration and wisdom. Vision and personal reward.
“It was a cool moment because the Fulbright, they have to think that your project has merit to get the research grant,” Carvalho said. “That was really exciting that they thought my project was interesting and worthwhile.”
After not running competitively until high school, Carvalho became a natural leader for the Owls, mentoring freshmen and bringing the team closer together.
The steeplechase — mentally and physically challenging — became his strongest event. The seasons — cross country, indoor, outdoor — blended with his studies. Conference USA academic medal and commissioner’s honor roll; Rice’s track and field scholar athlete of the year.
“He was a team captain officially the last couple years but really unofficially the entire time,” said Rice track coach Jon Warren. “Of all the things he’s done academically … he was also putting in up to 100 miles per week of running.”
The fallout from the pandemic placed all that on hold.
Carvalho was confronted with an unforeseen decision. He could wait everything out and hope for a final, but limited, shot in the spring — if college sports returned. Or he could concentrate on everything that came with the Fulbright award, a prestigious grant that honors academic merit and leadership potential and promotes finding solutions to international concerns.
“He would have to put all those wonderful things on hold to wait for essentially a full year to be able to do this again,” Warren said. “That’s an awful hard thing to do.”
With a master’s degree from Rice in space studies, a new academic world waiting at the California Institute of Technology and the promise that the Fulbright represents, Carvalho focused on his academic future and took comfort in knowing what he had helped build with the Owls.
“What I’m leaving behind is a really talented group of people that I think will be able to do really special things over the next couple of years,” Carvalho said.
He isn’t leaving running behind.
Carvalho hopes to participate in the Houston Marathon in January before leaving for Chile. The strongest assets of a runner’s life — dedication, consistency, energy, perseverance — will continue to guide his unique view of life.
“Be confident in the work you have put in once it’s done,” Carvalho said.
He learned the same approach at Rice, where the best of the best strive for excellence in athletics and academics.
Discipline and detail. Maximizing personal production within a 24-hour day. Finding a way to balance another 6 a.m. workout with a major assignment due at 9 a.m.
“You kind of get used to it,” Carvalho said. “But it’s definitely the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
Christopher Johns-Krull, an astronomy professor at Rice, praised Carvalho’s energy and inner-drive.
“He was by far the most productive undergraduate research student that I have ever had at Rice,” Johns-Krull said.
Carvalho’s drive has placed him closer to the real stars in the universe.
He grew up being inspired by images captured by the Hubble Space Telescope and “fantastic celestial objects.” The more Carvalho learned, the more he wanted to know.
Running and Rice created a pathway to another world: space.
“It’s taught me a lot of lessons about pushing through failure and becoming more persistent,” Carvalho said. “Understanding how it takes years and years and years for things to grow.”