Political scientist Camila Díaz Foxon is the new executive director of the IMFD
December 2022— There are three priority areas that Camila Díaz Foxon, a political scientist at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, will focus on first after taking up the position of executive director of Millennium Institute Foundational Research on Data. The first will be to support and promote lines of research that, after five years of intense work, will tackle the scientific challenges that have been set for a new period with renewed vigor.
The second is to strengthen projects that have emerged under the umbrella of certain lines of research, which have the potential to become magnets for scientists and whose topics have a profound social impact. One example of this is the initiative to take an interdisciplinary approach to the debate surrounding ethics in work and data studies.
The third priority involves intensive work to systematize and streamline the IMFD's administrative processes, adapting them to the requirements of the National Research and Development Agency (ANID), which oversees the Millennium Science Initiative, of which this center is a part.
" Support is essential for research projects, which sometimes encounter obstacles inherent to the scientific process, such as uncertainty, or other more circumstantial obstacles, such as a lack of human capital. Part of my role is to support them in removing barriers from their path and facilitating the smooth and harmonious development of their work," says the political scientist, who has a specialization in Education, Memory, and Human Rights from the University of Chile.
Social science expertise applied to data science
Camila Díaz Foxon's career spans various fields, which has allowed her to see in practice where science can contribute to significant social change: she has been a civics teacher for high school students in highly vulnerable social contexts and, as a researcher, she has participated in various national studies evaluating public policies on education, housing, and the environment.
This experience was key to her being invited to become executive coordinator of Plataforma Telar, one of the IMFD's flagship projects. Telar brought together researchers and students from the fields of political science, sociology, computer science, and communications to study the social debate surrounding the 2021-2022 Constitutional Convention using thick-data methodology.
The excellence of her work made her the perfect candidate to succeed Bárbara Peñafiel as Director of Research and Academic Training at the IMFD in 2022. In this role, her first tasks were to implement a streamlined and fluid process for incorporating IMFD scholarship students into the center, monitoring their needs and progress in their careers, in order to consolidate a community of young people who are still feeling the impact of post-pandemic isolation and the intense return to everyday life.
"It has not been easy for anyone to deal with the consequences of the pandemic. In general, students and staff are feeling more downhearted and less energetic about leading or participating in activities. All research centers and universities must take responsibility for this and provide human support," emphasizes the executive director.
Regarding the mark she wants to leave on her leadership, the political scientist states: "I hope we can preserve and enhance the human touch that characterizes the IMFD, a center where People the most important thing. We are a family, and we want to extend these ties to our entire community. A science that lacks a sense of humanity runs the risk of being disconnected from society, and our center works hard to be in tune with People. Our mission calls us to do this: to conduct research that benefits society as a whole."
