Our colleague, Dr. Cecilia Fuentealba, is highlighted in the exhibition “Mujeres UdeC en innovación y emprendimiento”, which will be open to the public between March 4 and 8, from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm, at the Faculty of Chemical Sciences.

On the eve of a new commemoration of International Women’s Day, the UdeC inaugurated this day a graphic exhibition that highlights the contribution of 15 female researchers – academics and graduate students – in the generation and dissemination of scientific-technological knowledge.

The exhibition Women UdeC in Innovation and Entrepreneurship is organized by the Gender InEs Project, the Directorate of Innovation and Development of the Vice Rector’s Office for Research and Development (VRID), the Office of Transfer and Licensing and IncubaUdeC, and will be open until Friday, March 8 at the front of the Faculty of Chemical Sciences.

On the occasion, Rector Dr. Carlos Saavedra Rubilar stated that the low numbers of women in science in Chile – 35% of the people doing research – are a wake-up call regarding the need to eliminate the gaps that prevent a greater presence of women in this field.

In this sense, Dr. Saavedra stated that in order to advance in this matter it is necessary to accelerate the processes of incorporation of women to the scientific and technological world, innovation and entrepreneurship.

This, according to the Rector, requires “accompanying the new generations as early as possible and, of course, when we observe gender gaps, accompanying and facilitating the development of that fraction of the female researchers who have greater difficulties”.

In this way, he said, “talents and capacities will certainly be expressed in the way they should always have been expressed”.

Vice Rector Dr. Paulina Rincón González emphasized the conditions offered by UdeC for the development of its community. “On more than one occasion we have been described as a good place to reconcile family and work life and we offer good spaces not only for academics, but also for our graduate students to develop their research,” she said.

She also highlighted the collaborative approach that drives the InEs Gender project. “In the world and in the country we have a system for obtaining resources for research that is based on competition and these projects and what is being done in this exhibition is based on collaboration among peers, and that is very remarkable,” she said.

Through the Vice Rector’s Office for Research and Development, UdeC has promoted a series of initiatives aimed at reducing gender gaps in the careers of female academics who have opted for a scientific career and that, little by little, are beginning to show their results.

“At the University you can see that innovation is also led by several women and we can say that within Chile we are the university that has more patents associated with women. And that is an achievement that has to be recognized,” said the Vice Rector of the VRID, Dr. Andrea Rodríguez Tastest.

This means that there are several projects with a female seal that have reached a stage of maturation that translate into ideas or products that can contribute to the solution of various problems of the environment.

From this perspective, in the opinion of the Director of the InEs Gender Project, Alejandra Brito Peña, the researchers selected for the exhibition “are an example that it is possible, even with the difficulties that exist, to advance and generate knowledge that effectively contributes to the development of the country and society in general”.

Dr. Brito emphasized that initiatives such as these also contribute to establish female referents in science that can motivate new generations of university students to follow the scientific path.

The selection of the female researchers that give life to the sample was made from the databases and records that IncubaUdeC and the OTL have.

“We knew that there were many more women who could have been, but we decided to be very rigorous, so this is a very select group of female researchers from the University, who have been in very prominent places at the national level in the field of innovation and entrepreneurship,” said the Director of Innovation and Development, Dr. Jorge Carpinelli Pavisich.

Representing the women who share their experiences in the exhibition, the Director of the Department of Clinical Biochemistry and Immunology of the Faculty of Pharmacy, Dr.Liliana Lamperti Fernández, referred to the value that InEs de Género has for UdeC researchers.

“This project is a valuable platform in which we have met and mutually recognized each other and which has allowed us to project our contribution, with our own difficulties, but with the pride of having taken the first step as entrepreneurs of the University of Concepción,” she said.

These are the researchers who are part of the exhibition.

  • Valeria Infante Villagrán, Faculty of Social Sciences: Production and sale of Ragnarök Games.
  • Angela Constanza Hidalgo Gajardo, Faculty of Biological Sciences: Production of a vaccine candidate against tuberculosis based on adenoviral vectors in suspension cultures.
  • Nathaly Ruiz – Tagle, Center of Biotechnology: Algafex
  • Solange Katherine Torres Galán, Faculty of Biological Sciences: Solar filters based on pigments from fungi native to Chile.
  • Andrea Paz Donoso Youlton, Biotechnology Center: Coloris Biotech
  • Liliana Lamperti Fernández, Faculty of Pharmacy: Implementation on a massive scale of the genetic and metabolic analysis business line of Prevegen Ltda.
  • Apolinaria García, Faculty of Biological Sciences: Lactobacillus fermentum RGM2341 strain and its use in the prevention and treatment of Helicobacter pylori infection.
  • Noelia Carrasco, Faculty of Humanities and Arts: Simol: Monitoring System for local participation in integrated watershed management.
  • Cecilia Fuentealba, UDT: Eucalyptus Bark Panel
    María Eugenia González, Faculty of Agricultural Engineering: Procedure for obtaining edible rosehip powder and dragees.
  • Cristina Muñoz, Faculty of Agricultural Engineering: Liquid foliar fertilizer based on VermiChar Tea for use in the agricultural and forestry sector.
  • Jannel Acosta, Faculty of Biological Sciences: Rapid test for the field diagnosis of Bovine Viral Diarrhea.
  • Katherine Sossa, Faculty of Forestry Sciences: Environmental disinfectant formulation comprising algae extracts.
  • Claudia Ulloa, Faculty of Environmental Sciences; Ximena García, Faculty of Engineering: Technological package for the production of carbonaceous materials with high added value from coals from the coal basin of the Biobío Region.

Source: NoticiasUdeC