Biography

Gabriela studied International Relations and Communication Sciences. She holds a PhD in Political Sciences and Administration from UAB Barcelona, and a CAS International Policy and Advocacy from D-MTEC ETH Zurich. She was visiting scholar at Harvard University and ETH Zurich. At the Cooperation and Development Center, holder of UNESCO Chair in Technologies for Development, she led the Swiss EPFL Leading House that upheld scientific cooperation with India, Brazil, Vietnam and Latin America. Her research on scientific diasporas and migration and development involved various countries such as Moldova, India, Colombia and South Africa and yielded notable international collaborations. She was a lecturer at the ITESM in Mexico, researcher at UZH and consultant at UNDP in Moldova and Geneva. She is founding advisor of Spring ACT (former KONA), which connects human rights with innovative technologies. Since 2020 she is Vice-President of the Swiss Commission for UNESCO (member since 2016) where she promotes science-society linkages. In 2019 Gabriela joined the College of Humanities as Deputy Director. She is member of EPFL’s Human Research Ethics Committee, and advocates for refugee scholars and academic freedom as the Scholars At Risk delegate at EPFL.