Located in the capital city of Santiago, the 178-year-old University of Chile is the country’s oldest and main institution of higher education. In teaching and research, the University of Chile develops about 30% of all scientific and technological research at the national level. It is an autonomous, public, and national university. Since its founding in 1842, the University of Chile’s faculty members and its alumni have been critical in developing new laws, new institutions, and the frame of Chile’s social, political, economic, artistic, and cultural system. The university, during this period, has had a strong influence in other Latin American countries by training their human resources. Among its first Presidents were the Venezuelan humanist and jurist Professor Andrés Bello (1843-1865) and the Polish scientist & mineralogist Professor Ignacio Domeyko (1867-1883). Two Chilean alumni were Nobel Prize winners in Literature – Gabriela Mistral (1945) and Pablo Neruda (1971) – and nineteen distinguished alumni have been elected Presidents of the Republic. The University of Chile has an annual budget of approximately US$ 1.2 billion.
Rosa Devés graduated in Biochemistry from the Universidad de Chile in 1974 and obtained a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Western Ontario (Canada) in 1978. Subsequently, she did postdoctoral studies at the University of Southern California (Los Angeles, USA).
Professor Devés served as Director of Graduate and Postgraduate Studies between 2006 and 2010, and as the first woman Prorector in the history of the University, between 2010 and 2014. In 2014 she joined the management team of President Ennio Vivaldi as Vice President of Academic Affairs, a position she held until 2022.
In Higher Education, her contribution to the deepening of equity and inclusion, and the creation of the special access route “Educational Equity Priority Access System” in 2011, is especially noteworthy. This program has made it possible for a large number of students from the public school system to enter the Universidad de Chile, driving an important institutional transformation, as well as other equity initiatives at the University. In 2015, she was part of the Advisory Council for Higher Education Reform of the Ministry of Education. On May 12, 2022, Professor Devés became the first woman President of the Universidad de Chile.
Dr. Cecilia Saint-Pierre graduated Industrial Engineer from Universidad de Chile in 2006 and obtained her Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile in 2018. Her research has been centered on process mining and complex network analysis applied to understand multidisciplinary collaboration in the health and education contexts. Dr. Saint-Pierre has over ten years of experience designing and managing IT projects in educational and institutional settings. She has solid knowledge in implementing education technologies, aligning software innovation with institutional goals, and managing high-performance multidisciplinary teams. Since 2018, she has led the incorporation of digital technologies in education as head of the Online Education Office of the Universidad de Chile.
