CINTECX is dedicating the month of April to Marta Pazos Currás, Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Vigo and researcher in the BIOSUV group, who features in the centre’s illustrated calendar and is the latest interviewee in the initiative Open Camera CINTECX for Women and Men in STEM.
Her scientific career began ‘almost by chance’ in the final year of her degree, thanks to a collaboration grant. ‘I had never considered becoming a researcher,’ she admits. ‘My plan was to study Medicine, but I started collaborating in a department, I liked it, and I never left.’ More than twenty years later, she remains linked to the same group where she took her first steps in research.
Her current work focuses on two major areas: environmental technologies applied to water and soil treatment, and biotechnology, with research lines aimed at waste valorization through microorganisms. ‘Research is anything but monotonous: every day brings a new challenge,’ she summarizes.
A key moment in her career was her postdoctoral stage abroad, supported by the Ángeles Alvariño contracts from the Xunta de Galicia. For two years she carried out research stays in centres in Denmark and Portugal. ‘There, research was done without the constant pressure we have here,’ she recalls. ‘People worked until four in the afternoon and then everyone had their personal life.’
Glass ceiling and work–life balance in science
In the interview, Pazos Currás speaks openly about the difficulties of balancing motherhood with a research career and the impact of the glass ceiling in the scientific field. ‘Stopping meant stagnating, and many women were left behind,’ she says. A mother of two, she remembers a period marked by very long working days and a lack of work–life balance measures that at the time did not take motherhood into account in academic evaluations. ‘You had to meet the minimum requirements, whether you were a man or a woman, whether you had just given birth or not.’
Despite this, she acknowledges that the effort has paid off. Today she is the youngest full professor in her department. ‘Now that I’ve reached this point, I feel I’ve achieved the highest I could aspire to,’ she notes, although she warns that progress in equality and work–life balance ‘has come too late for many.’
As a final message, the researcher stresses that ‘research has no gender,’ but highlights the need to continue making these realities visible in order to move towards a fairer scientific system. ‘It’s not just about implementing measures, but about changing mindsets,’ she concludes, in line with the aim of Open Camera CINTECX for Women and Men in STEM to give a voice to role models who help transform the scientific system from within.”