Argentina returns to win prestigious international prize For Women in Science

From an early age, the Argentine physicist Karen Hallberg was fascinated by the riddles of the world. Her desire to find answers to the innumerable questions that inspired her surroundings was such that, in her family, she was called "Señorita porqué".

"I remember going on trips to Quebrada de Humahuaca [en Jujuy, donde creció] to see Carl Sagan in the Cosmos series ", she confesses to Bariloche, where she is currently a professor at the Balseiro Institute, principal investigator of Conicet, responsible for the department of condensed physics of the physics control of the National Atomic Energy Commission at the Atomic Center of that city.

Hallberg, a reference name in the international scenario of condensed matter quantum theory, a discipline that studies the emerging phenomena of quantum properties of matéia, has just been chosen as one of the world's five women in the world. to be the following laureates March 15 with the prize "O-real-Unesco" For Women in Science ", which is awarded to Earth Sciences, Computer Science, Astronomy , mathematics, engineering, chemistry and physics. This prize, awarded for 21 years, recognizes the scientific contributions of extraordinary researchers, one for each continent, is awarded by an international jury of the highest level and recognized as the most prestigious scientists.

"I am very happy," exclaims the researcher, who is also the mother of a computer science graduate and a doctor who resides in gynecology and obstetrics, plays tennis, does some running walking, kayaking, trekking and, as if nothing had happened. all this is not enough, that's the cello. This is one of the most important actions to promote women's place in science, the most visible. This has taken me completely by surprise! Almost all the international awards L'Oréal-Unesco Previously awarded to Argentine scientists, they had been for biomedicine, with the exception of Mariana Weissmann (also physicist), in 2003. Of course, it is nice to recognize his work, but the most important is that it allows to visualize the local physics, an area that, as in the Earth Sciences, computer science, astronomy, mathematics, l & # 39; engineering, physics and chemistry, only about 30% of students are women and their participation decreases as you move forward. This proportion is even lower at the Balseiro Institute: only 10% of the students are women, we do not have a full professor or a single badociate professor. This gives the opportunity to convey a message. "

The "atomic"

Descended from Swedish, Italian and British (curiously, her maternal grandfather's name was Charles Chaplin), and as beautiful at age 54 as at age 16, she was crowned National Queen of the National Student Festival (a title that also won At Daniela Cardone Carolina Ardohain, "Pampita"), Karen was determined to go to Bariloche since her studies at the National School of Juuy: her teenage friends called her "atomic atom". He arrived at 19 and came in with a friend. The year before and the following year, there were no women. She met her husband, the physicist Ingo Allekotte as well, and they were married three days after graduation. A year later, while he was preparing his doctorate, his first son, Kevin, was born and, three years later, Tania.

He currently leads a team of 15 people and explains that his work is based on "the development of numerical methods to study the properties of complex materials, especially superconductors".

"It's basic physics – he says – even though in 1986 superconducting materials were discovered [es decir, que permiten el paso de la electricidad sin ofrecer resistencia ni pérdida de energía] at higher temperatures, we still can not fully explain where these emerging properties come from. At the time of the calculations, we lack information. With my students, we paved the way for calculating the precise physical properties of these new materials. We now have one of the most accurate methods in the world. And thanks to this, we have recently been able to describe new "quasiparticulas" in these materials. "

Interested in the ethical and social role of science, Hallberg also integrated the advice of the Pugwash organization, created after Albert Einstein, Frederick Joliot-Curie and Bertrand Russell convened world conferences to promote disarmament nuclear. and who is trying today to bring his knowledge and rationality to decision-making.

This year, María Alejandra Molina, badistant researcher of the Conicet in the Department of Chemistry of the Faculty of Natural Sciences of the National University of Río Cuarto, will be among the "rising talents", not long ago . He returned home after working for several years in Germany. He distinguished himself by his project of developing nanogels capable of selectively releasing antibiotics to bacteria under a thermal stimulus generated by near-infrared radiation. This technology would reduce microbial resistance, one of the critical issues that WHO has included among the main challenges this year.

According to Molina, in a statement from the organizing committee of the award, nanogels are substances commonly used as capsules for the controlled release of drugs, but in this case, one tries to take care of antibiotics that are released when the gel shrinks as a result of its heating by infrared radiation. This would then allow the parallel operation of a second antimicrobial therapy that would kill the resistant bacteria.

Multifunctional nanogels under development should in principle be applied to surfaces, although researchers do not exclude that they may be used in humans in the future.

On the World Day of Women and Girls in Science, Hallberg and Molina are two examples that will certainly inspire new generations.