Isabel Márquez: Spanish astrophysicist enters the galactic nucleus

Isabel Márquez Pérez has been studying the interior regions of nearby and distant galaxies for several decades, but she remembers the first spark that ignited her scientific curiosity . When she was little, when she was 7 or 8 years old, she remembers her mother, who was a teacher until she got married. His mother loved to teach whoever was close. When Isabel came to the subject of eclipses at school, she wanted to explain it to her. They were in his bedroom with the light off and only the bedside lamp, with a globe of the world of those that we all had at home and with a tennis ball he explained what eclipses consisted of. Isabel believes that at that moment she began to imagine the scales of the universe . She was fascinated. On account of this, his mother gave him an astronomy book for children and he remembers that they explained how to recreate the craters of the moon with flour. For a time she wanted to be an orchestra conductor (because she is also very interested in music and learned to play the guitar at a very young age and later the piano) but finally she opted for physics .

This took her from her native Extremadura to Madrid, where she graduated in Astrophysics from the Complutense University of Madrid . Later he received his doctorate in this same subject from the University of Granada. After his bachelor’s degree and his doctorate , he specialized in Active Galactic Nuclei (or AGNs for its acronym in English). The name is quite descriptive and refers to the central part of some galaxies that present an activity that we are not able to explain only with the formation of stars (not even the most violent formation that we can consider). This activity is not unexpected just because of the amount of energy emitted, but also because of its distribution in the electromagnetic spectrum and because of the processes that give rise to all that energy.

In these galaxies, the supermassive black hole at their center, millions or billions of times the mass of the Sun, receives material from this entire inner region . Specifically, in the accretion disk, phenomena that emit jets of particles and very energetic winds are produced, which are what we observe from here. She is dedicated to studying these galactic nuclei on a larger scale and investigating the different mechanisms that can activate them in this way .

Despite spending decades dedicating herself to these issues, Isabel comments that her curiosity has only grown over time . Not only in astrophysics, such as the most intimate details of star formation from molecular clouds , but also neuroscience and neurophysiology, the functioning of the brain and the nervous system, he finds fascinating. He would also have liked to learn to play some other musical instrument .

During his training he had several figures who served as a reference and model. He refers to his doctorate years and remembers being interested in the research of VC Rubin , not knowing at first that this research, which has turned out to be so important for current astrophysicists, was by a woman, Vera Cooper Rubin . He regrets that the American astrophysicist was left without receiving the Nobel, but comments that despite this, he did not cease to be a reference in his life. He also comments on the importance of closer references and speaks specifically of two scientists from whom he learned during his postdoctoral stage. With them she learned a lot about astrophysics and the job of researcher, but also that she could have a place in a world that did not always make it easy . They were Josefa Masegosa from the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA) and Florence Durret , from the Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, where Isabel did a postdoctoral stay.

After his stay in Paris he returned to Granada, to the IAA, where he has carried out his research ever since. Since 2017 she has been the Vice Director of Science at this research institute and since 2018 she has been the Scientific Director of its Severo Ochoa project . In addition to scientific research, she has also dedicated her time to defending the role of women in science .

In her opinion, she has been able to understand this situation over the years, seeing how her own career and that of her colleagues have developed. He comments on the difficulty of establishing a family at the beginning of a scientific career. He considers that the situation has improved in recent years , but that this progress could be understood as pedaling up a hill: if we stop pedaling, we not only stop, but we can go back .

For Isabel, this progress has come from several areas. From the institutions, with laws that make things unquestionable that were unquestionable before, but also thanks to the fact that we are now more aware that science (and any other human field) is enriched when we take into account all points of view and include the diversity , of the sexes but also of other types, on a day-to-day basis. However, he is concerned that these advances may give us a false sense of success and that we forget everything that remains to be done and insists that these problems are not solved only with regulations and campaigns, but that they need to be part of our education.

He also considers it important to give visibility to this diversity because it can avoid creating the false image that we do not fit in a certain area, that “we do not paint anything”. He emphasizes that the solution is in the hands of everyone . That we must get involved and collaborate to face a problem that affects us , whether we are women or not, and to which we must respond at the appropriate times and in the appropriate way.

For her, the slowness of change can be frustrating and seeing how steps are sometimes taken backwards, but she believes that the key is to join forces and involve the entire team, be it research or otherwise. It also highlights the role of those of us who are dedicated to dissemination, to bringing science closer to the general public, in this task of giving visibility and creating awareness.

Isabel Márquez is a woman who speaks passionately about the enigmas of the universe but also about the injustices and nonsense of the human condition . We talked about how seemingly inoffensive things like language, role models, and roles shown to us on television, in advertising, or even in textbooks or informative books shape our image of the world and our place in it. She compares it to fine rain, which we perhaps despise or ignore because it is not torrential and noisy, but which manages to penetrate the earth and make the seeds we plant in it grow .

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