20 January 2025
Catalina Reyes Suárez, one of the data stewards of the National Oceanographic Data Centre (NODC), was recently interviewed by a local press in Trieste (Italy) to tell why she moved from South America to Trieste 12 years ago. Catalina is originally from Colombia, where she completed her physics degree at the Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia in Tunja.
«I have always been fascinated by the physics of Earth systems," she said, "so I applied for a scientific programme organised by the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste.” The ICTP is an institution that researches fundamental scientific questions at the highest level, promotes active collaboration with scientists in developing countries and fosters international cooperation through science. At the ICTP, Catalina worked on the current data of the Gulf of Trieste; before that, she analysed the same type of data of the Malta Channel in Sicily (Italy).
After completing her PhD, Catalina worked as a post-doc at the OGS on radar data from the Gulf. She has been working at the National Oceanographic Data Centre at OGS for several years. She is involved in validating and analysing oceanographic data and developing tools to calculate indicators of the quality of the marine environment. She is currently working on the Blue Cloud 2026, Fair-Ease and Itineris projects. Her research has a great practical benefit: "The NODC is working to bring the data closer to the citizens, but also to the people who formulate laws and make decisions about the health of our oceans».
This is what Catalina explained during the interview. We wish Catalina many more years of good work at the NODC!