José Luis Palacio Prieto appointed director of Earth Sciences

The UNAM University Government Board appointed José Luis Palacio Prieto as the first director of the National School of Earth Sciences, for the 2018-2022 period.

Upon taking office, the UNAM secretary general, Leonardo Lomelí Vanegas, said that being the first holder, Palacio Prieto has the challenges of organizing this new university entity and finalizing the construction of its own building.Collaboration SchemeIt also has the challenge of achieving a collaboration scheme between faculties and institutes that give meaning to an educational model that will have to be nourished, necessarily, by the competition of several academic instances due to the very nature of their object of study, which also constitutes an area priority for the development of Mexico City.In order for the National School of Earth Sciences to advance and consolidate, it has the support of the central administration, Lomelí Vanegas said.In the Room of the Technical Council of the Faculty of Sciences, the Secretary General urged the community to join efforts and capacities around this new project.In due course, Palacio Prieto acknowledged that “there are many consolidated areas in the University, where we have frontline academics, and all of them will have to be summoned for the design of the new School."In the next four years I commit myself to give my best effort, and to the extent of my possibilities and abilities to attend to the concerns of the community," he concluded.

José Luis Palacio Prieto has a degree, teacher and doctor in Geography from UNAM. He carried out specialization studies in integral management of watersheds, geographic information systems and remote sensing at the International Institute for Aerospace Survey and Earth Sciences, in the Netherlands.He was director of the Institute of Geography (IGg), director and coordinator of the Postgraduate and director of the Center for Teaching for Foreigners. He is a full time C researcher of the IGg and level III of the National System of Researchers.His areas of interest are geomorphology and evaluation of land use change using satellite images. In recent years, his work has focused on the valuation of geological heritage and geoparks. He was promoter of the Mixteca Alta World Geopark, recognized by Unesco in 2017.In 2001, he promoted the creation of an academic group oriented to the study of natural resources in Morelia, Michoacán, which led to the current Research Center in Environmental Geography.He was a founding member of the Mexican Geomorphology Society and its president. Together with academics of the Geophysics Institute, he promoted the creation of the University Seminary of Geopatrimony and Geoparks, of which he is coordinator.He has published 55 articles in national and international indexed journals and 13 books. He received the Benito Juárez Medal for Geographical Merit, from the Mexican Society of Geography and Statistics.