Our list includes two honorees from the region’s most
troubled country – plus an astronomer, a mathematician, and a pioneering
biotech engineer.
Press. http://americasquarterly.org
The news out of Venezuela lately has been awful. But one of the great
untold stories is the vast number of talented Venezuelans, many of whom live
abroad, who will hopefully be called upon one day to help put their marvelous
country back together.
Here at Americas Quarterly, we were reminded of that amazing pool of
human resources when we put together our list of Latin America’s Top 5
academics. Venezuela ended up being the only country with two honorees – Mónica
Ponce de León, the dean of Princeton University’s School of Architecture (both
the first woman and Latin American to hold that prestigious position), and
Ricardo Hausmann, who for two decades has been one of the world’s leading
economists.
“I remain optimistic for Venezuela,” Hausmann told AQ. He noted that the
current crisis is “manmade” – which means the solutions will be, too. Also on our list: Artur Avila, a 37-year-old mathematician from Brazil
who won the prestigious Fields Medal and has done pioneering work on the
field’s “10 martini problem” (No, we didn’t know what it was, either); Agustín
Lage, the father of Cuban immunology who worked with the United States long
before the recent thaw in relations; and María Teresa Ruiz González, a
trailblazing astronomer who broke gender barriers, and others, in Chile.
Overall, we think it’s a formidable collection of minds, in a region
that usually doesn’t get enough attention for its human capital. Latin America
has lots of reasons for hope.
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