Dedication, perseverance, intelligence and, above all, generosity in sharing his knowledge and experiences with the country’s children and youth are part of the set of qualities and actions that characterize Dr. Luis Zea, a space scientist chosen as a Person of the Year 2022 by the editorial of the Council in Prensa Libre to recognize the positive leadership of Guatemalans over the years. year just ended.
The interview with Dr. Zia that we are publishing today as a cover story is simply eloquent regarding the ideals, processes, achievements and at the same time the difficulties of his professional path. His love for Guatemala is unquestionable and his sure desire to bring new hope to the germination of scholarly talent, especially in university classrooms. He was part of the promoters of the project of Guatemala’s first satellite, Quetzal 1, developed and built over a period of nearly three years, with the participation of more than a hundred citizens, including teachers and university students of various disciplines, which was successfully launched. In March 2020.
His research horizon continues to expand and that is why he has developed many projects with the support of NASA, including gravitational impact analysis of microscopic life forms in space, a description that at first glance may seem literal stellar, but which may have important applications in Medicine, biology and the future of space exploration.
Dr. Zea has been reaping the milestones for several years, and in 2022 he’s part of the Artemis I lunar mission, which launched last November and for which he opened engagement spaces for engineering students in Guatemala.
At Prensa Libre we feel very proud of the appointment of Dr. Zea, for his most superior contribution is to impart enthusiasm, to inspire new ways of knowing and to encourage a spirit of inquiry with facts and qualities which, unfortunately, are mostly neglected in the national school system.
Unfortunately, many educators sell fear, prejudice, and even aversion to science. Critical ethos is usually replaced by rote methodologies and experimentation is restricted to rigorous methodologies, lacking imagination and above all open to novelty. For this reason, it is appropriate to highlight the role of the national scientist who rubs against the best in the world simply because he is one of them.
The politicization of the education portfolio, subject to the nonsense and expediency of corrupt teacher leaders, has led to a continuous deterioration in the quality of learning, evidenced by poor performance in the area of mathematics and reading comprehension. However, an excessive interest in profit rather than in excellence is also known in certain sectors of special education.
This ranking marks three decades of annual recognition as the Free Press Person of the Year, chosen by the editors of this medium. The primary goal is to glorify the person or group whose assertive, inspiring, and persistent actions over the past 12 months form a virtuous cycle worthy of being a valuable, repeated, and expanded model in a society that needs intelligence, merit, and attitude. Services.
