Janire Prudencio has a doctorate in Earth Sciences and says that since she was six years old she has been fascinated by volcanoes. She says that she was always very clear that she wanted to be a volcanologist and dedicate herself to researching them.
This researcher, who currently works at the University of Granada, explains that her work consists of making a kind of X-ray of the volcanoes : “Thus, if we find a magmatic chamber, we can interpret that this volcano has many possibilities of erupting”. account. “If, on the contrary, we see that it has many bodies consolidated inside it, we can deduce that this volcano has little activity.”
And it is that Janire is a pioneer in the study of the internal structure of active volcanoes through the use of attenuation tomography techniques, which has made it possible to advance in the knowledge of active volcanoes throughout the world, from Antarctica to Japan and from Italy to the United States. She is the first woman in the world to apply this type of advance, and has made her way into a discipline hitherto monopolized by men.
In addition to studying volcanoes in 3D, Janire Prudencio also has a more informative facet, and tries to educate children in concepts related to the volcanic phenomenon, “ because many of us go on tourism to places where there are volcanoes, so I explain what they are and why they are dangerous ”. In this way they are more aware of security measures and catastrophes such as the one that occurred in December 2019 in New Zealand, when the Whakaari volcano erupted and caused the death of several tourists, or the eruption of the Stromboli volcano, in Italy, in July of the same year.
The importance of recognizing the work of women scientists
This researcher recognizes that in almost all science majors the presence of women is usually a minority. “I find it interesting that the girls and adolescents of today, who will be the women of tomorrow, have normal girls who do science as references . And science can be done in very different areas, in some of them we are not used to seeing women. With these awards we get more visibility in society ”.
Janire Prudencio was one of the winners in the first Very Young Scientists Awards, promoted by Muy Interesante to give more visibility to the work of researchers in areas where the presence of women is usually a minority. The awards ceremony took place at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao on December 14, 2019 , coinciding with the celebration of the Homo Curiosus scientific dissemination event.
