Gabriela Álvarez (engineer)
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Gabriela del Socorro Álvarez García (died 2017)[1] was a Mexican mechanical engineer known for her research on solar energy and heat transfer in buildings and on the use of reflective building roofs to reduce the need for air conditioning.[2]
Álvarez is originally from Mexico City, and as an undergraduate studied physics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). After earning a master's degree in mechanical engineering from New Mexico State University in the US, she returned to UNAM for doctoral study in engineering.[3] She completed her doctorate in 1994 with the dissertation Transferencia de calor en una cavidad con interaccion termica a traves de una cara semitransparente con controlador optico.[4]
In 1989, she became a professor and researcher in the department of mechanical engineering at the Centro Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo Tecnológico (CENIDET, the National Center for Research and Technological Development), in Cuernavaca.[3] In 2014, CENIDET became part of the National Technological Institute of Mexico system.
She also served internationally in the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers Technical Committee 4.5 on fenestration, the first Mexican to do so.[5]
Álvarez received a national award for innovation in renewable energy from the Mexican Ministry of Energy. He was a member of the Mexican Academy of Sciences.[6]