Santiago Grisolía, the marquis of biochemistry
Valencian scientist Santiago Grisolía. / EFE/Kai Forsterling
(January 6, 1923 – August 4, 2022)
The Valencian doctor and biochemist was a forerunner of scientific dissemination in Spain and the internationalization of science in our country. After receiving his doctorate in Madrid, he continued his studies in New York under the supervision of Nobel Prize-winning scientist Severo Ochoa. Grisolía stood out for his studies on the urea cycle and as promoter of the King Jaume I research awards. In addition, he promoted the first International Conference on the Human Genome.
“Who doesn’t pedal, falls” was the scientist’s favorite phrase. His remarkable ability to generate knowledge earned him the appreciation of great figures, even outside the scientific environment. The then King Juan Carlos I awarded him the title of Marquis of Grisolía in 2014 for his “prolonged and commendable research and teaching work” and for his “contribution to scientific knowledge”.
John Elliott, the Briton Who Made the Spanish Empire Known
(June 23, 1930 – March 10, 2022)
The Prince of Asturias Prize for Social Sciences 1996 passed away at the age of 91, after a long career dedicated to understanding and explaining the Spanish Empire. John Huxtable Elliott contributed with his work, largely dedicated to the figure of the Count-Duke of Olivares, to project a new image of Spain in the European context.
Hispanist John Elliott. / EFE
After traveling to the country for the first time in 1950, he dedicated decades of his career to the study of aristocratic and Spanish history of the 16th and 17th centuries, when he discovered a portrait of him by the painter Diego Velázquez in the Prado Museum, in Madrid.
Born in Reading, near London, he studied at the elite English boarding school Eton before earning his doctorate at Trinity College, University of Cambridge.
Author of works such as La Europa Dividida. 1559-1598, The Old and New World or Imperial Spain, Elliott wrote what is considered the best biography of Gaspar de Guzmán, the Count-Duke of Olivares and such classics as Language and Empire in the Spain of Philip IV.
Maria Antónia Canals, teacher of teachers
(November 15, 1930 – April 29, 2022)
Veteran Maria Antônia Canals, kindergarten and primary education teacher who teaches mathematics. / Pere Duran/SYNC
It’s hard to show love for math at school. However, María Antònia Canals reached a milestone with her innovative teaching methods. As an early childhood educator, she developed recreational mathematics, which moves from experimentation through play to abstract thinking.
The University of Girona appointed her professor emeritus in 2001, where she directed the Gabinet de Materials i de Recerca per a la Matemàtica a l’Escola. In an interview with Sinc, Canals shared one of his last pedagogical messages about working with children: “if we don’t tell them lies, they respond, even if each one does it in their own way”.
Ernesto García, computer pioneer and historian of science
(January 27, 1932 – November 26, 2022)
Ernesto García Camarero with his collection of machines and computer parts. / Bald Elm/SYNC
The computer scientist and mathematician from Madrid was one of the first to develop computing in Spain. He was the author of the first automated system for the National Library and created the Digital Library of the Ateneo de Madrid, of which he was a member. During his collaboration at the University of Buenos Aires in the 1960s, he installed the first electronic computer in a South American higher education center.
There are many achievements of Ernesto García that can be mentioned, but his main interest was to rescue the memory of Spanish scientific contributions throughout history. The computer scientist valued the figures of Jorge Juan and Antonio de Ulloa, who participated in the measurement of the Ecuadorian meridian, as well as José Echegaray, who introduced modern mathematics to Spain.
Elena Tchalidy, prominent agronomist and feminist
(1924 – January 4, 2022)
Elena Chalidy. / wikipedia
An important figure in the field of agricultural engineering, Elena Tchalidy was born into a wealthy family in Argentina. She began studying Chemistry at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA), when women barely made up 15% of the student body. Tchalidy interrupted her academic career to marry a socialist activist, who soon died a sudden death.
Tchalidy returned to UBA to study Agricultural Engineering, as his father owned farms in the city of Buenos Aires, 25 de Maio. The scientist achieved the title of doctor, but has always defiantly denounced the inequality of opportunities for women to exercise their trades. The autonomous city of Buenos Aires declared her in 2011 a prominent figure in the field of civil rights.
Steve Willhite, the creator of GIFs
(March 3, 1948 – March 14, 2022)
The GIF (Graphics Interchange Format or Graphics Interchange Format) format has spread through popular culture and can be used on virtually any digital platform. They are images that allow animations and download the file easily despite its large size. Its creator, Steve Willhite, left us last March.
Willhite developed the GIF in 1987 while working for CompuServe, the first telematics service provider in the United States. The Oxford Dictionary accepted the use of the word GIF in 2012, and Willhite received the Webby Lifetime Achievement Award a year later.
Adriana Hoffman, defender of the preservation of Chilean forests
(1940 – March 20, 2022)
Adriana Hoffmann/Wikipedia
Daughter of renowned physician Franz Hoffman and noted psychiatrist Lola Jacoby, Adriana Hoffman became an eminent authority on botany and ecology. Her most recognized work is A Tragédia do Bosque Chileno (1998), in which she denounces the desertification of the landscape of her native country, sometimes even by illegal means.
The UN recognized Hoffman as one of the 25 environmental leaders in the 1990s. In addition, he represented Chile at the sixth Climate Summit in 2000, held in The Hague (Holland). His career in the academic world also earned him great prestige in the field of botany, as Hoffman discovered more than one hundred species of cacti.
Pilar Sanjurjo, the first televised meteorologist in Spain
(November 7, 1942 – April 6, 2022)
Born in A Coruña (Galicia), Pilar Sanjurjo graduated in Physical Sciences from the University of Madrid, today Complutense, in 1968. That same year, she appeared on television for the first time, when she replaced the also renowned meteorologist Eugenio Martín. Sanjurjo thus became the first ‘weather woman’ in Spain, a position she held on Spanish television news until 1985.
Pilar Sanjurjo in an interview. /RTVE
Since the end of the Second Republic, no female scientist had accessed the National Meteorological Service, now called AEMET. Along with Dolores Parra, Sanjurjo broke that glass ceiling.
Among his milestones, Sanjurjo participated in the expedition to Antarctica in 1988 to investigate the hole in the ozone layer, aboard the Argentine icebreaker Almirante Irizar. The campaign pioneered studies that continue to this day.
Epaminondas Stassinopoulos, NASA astrophysicist and anti-Nazi fighter
(January 17, 1921 – May 16, 2022)
His full name was Epaminondas George Aristotle Alexander Stassinopoulos. Although his parents were of Greek descent, Stassinopoulos was born and raised in the Germanic state of Prussia. However, attacks by the Hitler Youth forced him and his brother to move to Athens in 1935, where he joined the Resistance against the Nazi occupation of Greece.
Stassinopoulos immigrated to the United States in 1954, where he studied Mathematics and Physics. The astrophysicist joined NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in 1961 and headed the Office of Radiation Physics until 2006. His prolific research into geomagnetism and radioactive exposure was recognized in 1992 when NASA awarded him the Exceptional Service Medal.
Sophie Freud, the “black sheep” of psychoanalysis
(August 6, 1924 – June 3, 2022)
There are many researchers of the human psyche who harshly criticized the postulates of Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis, one of the most vehement was his own granddaughter: Miriam Sophie Freud. The psychologist and social scientist described her grandfather’s teachings as narcissistic. In his book Living in the Shadow of the Freud Family (2007), he recounted how these statements negatively affected his mother and aunt.
To disprove his grandfather’s misogynistic theories, Freud conducted extensive research on women during the 1970s. This research showed, among other things, that women also have “true passion” just like men.