N EWS
FEAT U R E S
A SCIENTIST
If elected, Claudia
Sheinbaum Pardo
would bring an
extensive background
in science and
engineering to Mexico’s
presidency. But many EARLIER THIS YEAR, Claudia Sheinbaum
Pardo stood before thousands of people
researchers are gathered here in the Zócalo, one of the
world’s largest city squares, to kick off her
anxious about how campaign for Mexico’s presidency. “We will
she would govern make Mexico a scientific and innovation
power,” she vowed during her 1 March ad-
dress. “To do this, we will support the basic,
By Rodrigo Pérez Ortega,
natural, social sciences, and the humanities.
in Mexico City And we will link them with priority areas
and sectors of the country.”
Sheinbaum Pardo, a 61-year-old environ-
mental engineer who has served as Mexico
City’s mayor and its environment secretary,
has a hefty polling lead over her two oppo-
nents ahead of the 2 June elections (see side-
bar, p. 504). If she wins, she’ll become the
first woman and the first researcher to lead
the Latin American country of 128 million
people. “I’m very excited,” she recently told
Science during a wide-ranging interview.
Many in Mexico’s scientific community,
however, are uncertain whether Sheinbaum
500 3 MAY 2024 • VOL 384 ISSUE 6695
Pardo, who is backed by a coalition of popu-
list, left-of-center parties, will deliver what it
wants. She is a protégée of the current popu-
list president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador,
who has pursued policies deeply unpopular
with many scientists here, including cuts to
research spending, a controversial restruc-
turing of Mexico’s main science agency, and
environmentally destructive development
projects. And despite Sheinbaum Pardo’s ef-
forts to reassure researchers that she will
consult with them in forging science policy,
many of them fear that she will continue her
mentor’s legacy in a bid to retain the support
of his legions of followers.
“She obeys a political project,” says
PHOTO: RAQUEL CUNHA/REUTERS
Antonio Lazcano Araujo, an evolutionary
biologist at the National Autonomous Uni-
versity of Mexico (UNAM). “Everything that
Claudia Sheinbaum has done so far suggests
a continuity that she’s not willing to break, as
far as scientific policy is concerned.”
Sheinbaum Pardo pushed back against
science.org SCIENCE
 FOR PRESIDENT
such views during her interview with Science.
If elected, she declared, she will “not only
support scientific research, but also its link
with national problems and the development
of innovation,” she says. And what Mexico
PHOTO: MARCO GONZALEZ/EYEPIX GROUP/FUTURE PUBLISHING VIA GETTY IMAGES
needs to achieve that goal, Sheinbaum Pardo
asserts, is a “scientist president.”
AS A CHILD, Sheinbaum Pardo was steeped
in the world of science. Her mother, Annie
Pardo Cemo, is a biochemist at UNAM who
still studies the molecular mechanisms of
fibrosis, a form of wound healing. Her fa-
ther, Carlos Sheinbaum Yoselevitz, was a
chemical engineer and entrepreneur in the
leather tanning industry. (He died in 2013.)
Her older brother, Julio Sheinbaum Pardo,
is an ocean modeling researcher at Mexico’s
Center for Scientific Research and Higher
Education at Ensenada.
It was Julio who persuaded his sister to
study physics and not engineering as an
undergraduate at UNAM. “Study physics
SCIENCE science.org
because that way you will be well-trained as
a scientist,” Claudia recalls Julio telling her.
“Then, you can do whatever you want.”
For her 1988 undergraduate thesis,
tory. She helped create a national inventory
of Mexico’s greenhouse gas emissions, inves-
tigated the idea of introducing electric cars
into Mexico City, and advised Mexico’s na-
Sheinbaum Pardo spent a year studying tional electric utility. She also remained in-
wood-burning stoves in the P’urhépecha volved in politics. And after López Obrador
community of Cheranatzícurin in the was elected head of Mexico City in 2000, a
state of Michoacán, developing a thermo- family friend introduced her to the new
dynamic model of the stoves in an effort mayor. He soon appointed Sheinbaum Pardo
to improve their efficiency. “I always had as the city’s environment secretary.
the intention to help people,” she says. During her 6 years in that job, transpor-
She also started to polish her political tation became a major focus. She pursued
skills, joining a student group that suc- public transit and highway projects that, she
cessfully protested a plan by UNAM, which has said, helped cut the number of days the
has traditionally been nearly city suffered from poor air qual-
free, to start charging tuition. Since launching her ity by 30%. It was a struggle,
Sheinbaum Pardo joined the campaign in March in Sheinbaum Pardo told Science,
faculty of UNAM’s Engineering Mexico City’s square (above, to juggle her government
Institute in 1995, after earning a right), Claudia Sheinbaum work with ongoing academic
doctorate in energy engineering Pardo (above, left) has research—including participa-
for work partly done at the U.S. positioned herself to become tion in two assessment reports
Department of Energy’s Law- the first woman and first produced by the United Nations
rence Berkeley National Labora- researcher to lead Mexico. Intergovernmental Panel on Cli-
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mate Change. But, “I fell in love with public
service,” she says. “You put your knowledge
at the service of public policy and change
people’s lives.”
In 2006, however López Obrador ran for
president and lost, and Sheinbaum Pardo re-
turned to UNAM. For the next 8 years, aca-
demic duties consumed her time. Her favorite
class to teach was sustainable development,
she says. “It’s the essence of development,
which is to decrease social inequalities.”
EVEN AS SHEINBAUM PARDO mentored stu-
dents, she maintained ties with López
Obrador, who had begun to build a new
populist party, the National Regenera-
tion Movement (Morena). In 2015, she be-
came Morena’s candidate to lead Tlalpan,
a district of her home city—and won. And
when López Obrador launched his third
bid for the presidency 3 years later,
Sheinbaum Pardo became a Morena
candidate for a big job: mayor of
Mexico City, with its more than
9 million residents. Both candidates
won by large margins.
The new mayor faced formidable
challenges, including chronic water
shortages and repairing damage from
a powerful earthquake that occurred
the year before. But Sheinbaum
Pardo’s background in both sci-
ence and engineering gave her
the tools to hit the ground run-
ning, says evolutionary bio-
logist Rosaura Ruiz Gutiérrez,
who has known Sheinbaum Pardo
since she was very young, worked
with her as mayor, and now ad-
vises her presidential campaign.
“She’s not a typical politician,” Ruiz
Gutiérrez says. “She knows the value
of [combining] humanistic, scientific, and
technological knowledge.”
In an effort to ease the water crisis, the
city launched its first automated system for
monitoring water use and leaks and imple-
mented rainwater collection in poor neigh-
borhoods. To address the quake damage, the
mayor asked specialists to assess the local
geology and determine how to rebuild safely.
backed other environmental initiatives, in-
cluding promoting electric buses and install-
ing 32,000 solar panels at a major wholesale
market. And she and Ruiz Gutiérrez sought
to expand educational opportunity by creat-
ing two new universities, including one fo-
cused on medicine and nursing.
The COVID-19 pandemic put Sheinbaum
Pardo’s scientific training into the spotlight.
As the scope of the crisis became clear, she
worked with researchers to develop an
epidemiological model to help understand
how the outbreak might move through the
region. She met mornings and evenings with
the team, she recalls, and she kept track of
the growing number of infections on her
phone. Together with private entrepreneurs,
the city built a temporary COVID-19 hospital
that cared for almost 10,000 patients. “It was
expected that we were going to have a very
As a graduate student Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, shown here 1992,
spent years at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California.
serious crisis,” she says. “And yes, there were
difficulties—but there was always coordina-
tion to be able to respond.”
Her pandemic policies sometimes clashed
with the national government’s. For example,
Sheinbaum Pardo began to strongly encour-
age people to wear masks to reduce infec-
tions after she read a paper on the topic by
Mexican chemist and Nobel laureate Mario
author. “Claudia always works with data.”
Researchers familiar with Mexico City’s
approach commend Sheinbaum Pardo for
supervising the city’s pandemic response,
but say she also made some missteps. For ex-
ample, the city purchased and distributed the
antiparasite drug ivermectin, even though it
was not approved to treat COVID-19 at the
time, and studies have since concluded it was
ineffective. A recent report, prepared by an
independent group of researchers that evalu-
ated Mexico’s management of the pandemic,
also found that Mexico City had one of the
nation’s highest numbers of excess deaths
during the pandemic.
IN JUNE 2023, as López Obrador neared the
end of the single 6-year term allowed Mex-
ico’s president, Sheinbaum Pardo resigned
as mayor. In September she won Morena’s
nomination for president, and since
then she’s been promoting her
381-page “transformation” plan for
governing. It emphasizes issues such
as bolstering social programs to end
inequality, expanding higher educa-
tion, and fighting crime. Just three
pages of the plan touch on science-
related issues.
For many researchers, the big ques-
tion is whether, if elected, Sheinbaum
Pardo will continue, revise, or even
reverse her mentor’s unpopular sci-
ence-related policies. One flash point
is funding. In the name of control-
ling inflation and reducing spending,
López Obrador repeatedly adopted
austere budgets. Mexico’s main sci-
ence funding agency, the National
Council of Humanities, Sciences and
Technologies (Conahcyt), now spends
less in real terms than it did when he
took office, although he recently proposed a
modest increase (see chart, p. 503).
López Obrador also eliminated dozens of
funds dedicated to science, threatening sup-
port for projects like the Large Millimeter
Telescope Alfonso Serrano, Mexico’s flagship
astronomy facility (Science, 12 April, p. 146).
Some of the diverted money went to buy-
ing an oil refinery in Texas and to favored
PHOTO: CLAUDIA SHEINBAUM PARDO COMMUNICATION TEAM

Experts also studied how to best seal fis-
sures in eastern Mexico City, where the over-
exploitation of groundwater had caused the
land to subside.
To find solutions to other city problems,
she and Ruiz Gutiérrez established the Edu-
cation, Science, Technology and Innovation
network (Red ECOs), a consulting body that
works with national and international part-
ners. Red ECOs helped establish a city re-
search institute on aging, as well as a project
that aims to combine the production of crops
and solar energy. Sheinbaum Pardo also
Molina—even as López Obrador’s administra-
tion was raising doubts about such measures.
After vaccines became available,
Sheinbaum Pardo and her team built—on
her personal computer—a model for guid-
ing distribution. It used several variables
to inform planning, including the number
of available doses, refrigerators, and vac-
cination centers. She’s now a co-author of
three papers detailing the city’s pandemic
models and strategies. Sheinbaum Pardo
herself analyzed some of the data for those
publications, says Ruiz Gutiérrez, also a co-
megaprojects, such as the controversial Maya
Train, a 1550-kilometer railway designed to
promote tourism in the Yucatán Peninsula
(Science, 21 January 2022, p. 250).
The bottom line, says Raúl Rojas González,
a Mexican mathematician at the Free Uni-
versity of Berlin, is that public spending on
science “has not been a priority of this gov-
ernment.” It has also failed to encourage
the commercial sector to invest in research,
he asserts. The policy, he says, “has been to
demonize everything that has to do with …
[private] industry.”

502 3 MAY 2024 • VOL 384 ISSUE 6695 science.org SCIENCE

 Many researchers hope that, if elected, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo will revisit controversial science policies backed by her mentor, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (left).

Concern also centers on a controversial
2023 “science law” promoted by López
Obrador that gave Conahcyt new and
extensive controls over research fund-
CREDITS: (PHOTO) HENRY ROMERO/REUTERS; (GRAPHIC) M. HERSHER/SCIENCE; (DATA) ECONOMY AND BUDGET PACKET 2003–24; PUBLIC ACCOUNT REPORT 2003–22;
pletely dismantled,” Lazcano Araujo says. be corrected.” For example, Ruiz Gutiérrez
That track record, Rojas González says, says, “We must recover international rela-
has left researchers anxious about what tionships. … It’s essential.”
might happen under a Sheinbaum Pardo But Sheinbaum Pardo has remained rela-

ing and priorities (Science, 5 May 2023,
p. 444). Critics of the law say it po-
liticizes the agency, and they fault Co-
nahcyt’s controversial current head,
NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STATISTICS AND GEOGRAPHY’S QUARTERLY GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT REPORT 2024 AGGREGATED BY ANDRÉS AGOITIA POLO
presidency. “Is she going to continue López tively vague about how she would address
Obrador’s attacks on science or will she … specific issues. On funding, for example, she
radically change?” says, “I believe that basic science must be
supported, but it must be linked with the de-

molecular geneticist María Elena Álvarez- SHEINBAUM PARDO TOLD Science she is aware velopment of policies and the big issues that
Buylla Roces, for failing to consult the of the “change” in Mexico’s science poli- concern us today at the national level,” such
research community in developing the cies under her mentor. And Ruiz Gutiérrez as decreasing poverty. To that end, she has
measure. (Álvarez-Buylla Roces has said says that, if elected, Sheinbaum Pardo will said she wants to strengthen student schol-
Conahcyt consulted with “more than welcome input from scientists on possible arships, expand the universities she created
70,000 people, and public and private in- revisions. “What has been done well, we as mayor, and encourage collaborations with
stitutions too.”) She also sparked anger by have to continue it,” the candidate’s ad- foreign companies.
axing international programs and firing re- viser says, while “correcting what needs to In particular, Sheinbaum Pardo wants
searchers and cutting their salaries. to work with foreign businesses to
In 2021, Conahcyt clashed with re- boost private investment in research,
searchers after government prosecu- An austere era with a long-term goal of reshaping
tors accused 31 scientists of money Mexico’s main science funding agency, Conahcyt, has seen its spending Mexico’s economy. “My idea is that
laundering and other crimes, and shrink under the current president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Mexico will not be only an exporter
asked to send the accused to a high- after growing under the two previous presidents. His final budgets call of products” made by foreign compa-
security prison. A judge has since for a modest increase, but many Mexican researchers hope the next nies that build factories in the nation,
erased charges against at least five government will do more. but also a technology innovator, she
of the researchers, and Sheinbaum says. For example, she aims to en-
Actual spending Approved budget
Pardo has criticized the prosecutions courage U.S. companies working in
as “excessive.” Repealing the science Vicente Fox Felipe Calderón Enrique Peña Andrés Manuel Mexico to fund in-country research
law, Lazcano Araujo says, would be Quesada Hinojosa Nieto López Obrador and development programs. “For me,
2018 inflation-adjusted pesos (millions)

an essential first step toward healing 30K

the fractures between the scientific
community and the government.
López Obrador’s critics have also
complained about his efforts to es-
sentially eliminate the National Com-
mission for the Knowledge and Use
of Biodiversity (CONABIO), which
advises the government on conserva-
tion (Science, 5 April, p. 9). “CONA-
BIO was an exemplary institution
and we are seeing how it is com-
this link between scientific and tech-
nological research groups with na-
tional development is essential,” she
says. “I believe that it has happened
20K
very rarely in the history of Mexico.”
When it comes to the science law,
her campaign has sent mixed signals.
10K Its lengthy platform document rec-
ognizes the law as “an achievement”
of the current government. But Ruiz
0 Gutiérrez has criticized the law in
2006 2012 2018 2024 the past. And Sheinbaum Pardo sug-

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N EWS | F E AT U R E S
gested to Science that she’s open to revisiting
the measure. “We have to review [the law]
and talk to the community,” she says.
There are also conflicting currents in
Sheinbaum Pardo’s promises to boost higher
education, as she recently announced that
she would extend existing austerity measures
to include public universities, including her
alma mater, UNAM.
In other areas, Sheinbaum Pardo’s policies
will clearly depart from those of the current
administration. For example, whereas López
Obrador has strongly backed Mexico’s fossil
fuel industry and taken few steps to aggres-
sively address climate change, she plans to
strengthen a transition to renewable energy.
In the northern state of Sonora, she wants
to expand a planned 1-gigawatt photovoltaic
plant to produce 5 gigawatts, roughly equiva-
lent to five fossil-fueled plants. And she says
Mexico should invest more in solar water
heaters for homes and reduce the country’s
consumption of natural gas.
The candidate also says she will bring
scientists together to develop practical solu-
tions to other environmental problems, such
as Mexico’s ongoing water supply crisis. It’s
“important” for scientists to publish papers,
she says, but also to “translate” those findings
“into the development of public policies.”
IT’S NOT CLEAR whether that vision will
persuade scientists skeptical of Sheinbaum
Pardo to vote for her next month. Carlos
Bravo Regidor, an independent political ana-
lyst, cautions that even if Sheinbaum Pardo
wins, as expected, “the truth is that scientific
policy is not going to be one of her priorities,”
given her crowded policy agenda.
Bravo Regidor also notes that, in launching
attacks on the research community, Morena
and López Obrador adopted a tactic used by
populist movements in other countries—such
as Hungary, Brazil, and the United States—
likely because scientists can be painted as
a symbol of a technocratic elite. As a result,
Sheinbaum Pardo—as his successor—might
feel pressured by Morena supporters to sup-
port populist policies that might clash with
her scientist identity.
Ruiz Gutiérrez, however, believes
Sheinbaum Pardo will stay grounded in data.
“There will be policies based on evidence,”
she says. “Some politicians in the world deny
that there is climate change, [they] deny the
importance of science. … No, that’s not going
to happen here.”
Sheinbaum Pardo’s mother has little doubt
that her daughter’s scientific mindset will
help make her a decisive and strong-minded
president. “Her way of approaching problems
is with that vision,” Pardo Cemo says. And
“once she sets her mind to something, she
takes it very seriously.” j
504 3 MAY 2024 • VOL 384 ISSUE 6695
Xóchitl Gálvez Ruiz
A fellow engineer and presidential rival
I
t’s rare for a country to have a single presidential candidate with a technical back-
ground. Mexico has two. Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo’s strongest rival, Xóchitl Gálvez
Ruiz, is also an engineer, although her politics are very different. The former senator is
backed by three parties—representing the far-right, center, and left—that in the past
competed against one another, but now stand together against Sheinbaum Pardo’s
party, the ruling National Regeneration Movement (Morena).
Gálvez Ruiz, who has Indigenous Otomí roots and holds a degree in computer engi-
neering from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), has been a vocal
critic of Morena’s policies under current President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. The
administration “has been characterized by its contempt for the environment and sci-
ence,” she says. If elected, she adds, “science will be the lighthouse that guides us.”
Gálvez Ruiz has also criticized Sheinbaum Pardo for failing to repudiate López
Obrador’s strong support for Mexico’s oil industry. “Either we continue to put the money
into [oil] refining, where we have lost [money] … or we put it into education, science,
technology, and culture,” she says. “I opt for the latter.”
Polls show Gálvez Ruiz trailing Sheinbaum Pardo. But if elected, she promises to
increase public and private spending on research. She also aims to catalyze innovation by
easing the ability of students and researchers to move between Mexican and interna-
tional institutions, as well as from academia to industry. Currently, researchers typically
stay at one institution for their entire careers, and students who go abroad to earn a
graduate degree rarely come back to Mexico, notes María Brenda Valderrama Blanco,
a science policy specialist at UNAM who is advising Gálvez Ruiz. By making movement
easier, she says, “knowledge can be used … in any area, and that is what we greatly need.”
Gálvez Ruiz hasn’t aired specific plans to repeal or revise Mexico’s recent controversial
science law, which gives the National Council of Humanities, Sciences and Technologies
PHOTOS: (TOP TO BOTTOM) JEANNETTE FLORES/OBTURADORMX/GETTY IMAGES; FERNANDO LLANO/AP
(Conahcyt), the nation’s main science funding agency, greater power over budgets and
research priorities. But Valderrama Blanco says Gálvez Ruiz will decentralize science
policy and give more authority over science funding to Mexico’s state governments, an
approach discouraged by the current law.
Gálvez Ruiz has also said she will rebuild a commis-
sion, dismantled by López Obrador, that advises the
government on biodiversity conservation. And she wants
to foster greater opportunity for women in science.
That’s a goal the third presidential candidate, Jorge
Álvarez Máynez of the center-left Movimiento Ciudadano
party, appears to share. He hasn’t discussed science dur-
ing his public appearances. But as a member of Mexico’s
Jorge
Álvarez Congress, Álvarez Máynez strongly opposed the science
Máynez law, and his platform promises to transform Conahcyt
into a body free of political interference.
Álvarez Máynez’s plan also calls for increasing scholarships for graduate students,
creating new research centers in fields such as artificial intelligence, and launching a
National Observatory of Science, Technology and Innovation to “detect possible areas of
opportunity.” And he wants to invest at least 1% of the country’s gross domestic product
in science. Mexico has, in the past, codified that goal into law, but no administration has
been able to achieve it. —R.P.O.
science.org SCIENCE