Anamaría Font

Anamaría Font Villarroel is a Venezuelan theoretical physicist and professor of the Central University of Venezuela (UCV). Her research has been focused on models about the primordial components of matter in the context of string theory.

Font has contributed to development of Calabi–Yau dimensional compactification and she and her collaborators introduced the concept of S-duality to superstring theory, contributing to the second superstring revolution.

Early life and education Anamaría Font Villarroel was born in Anaco, Venezuela. In school she was supported by her teacher for her love of chemistry and physics. She obtained her bachelor's degree in physics, Cum Laude in 1980 from Simon Bolivar University, in Caracas, Venezuela.

Academic career Font received a PhD from the University of Texas at Austin in 1987, under the supervision of Austin M. Gleeson. Her PhD thesis was titled Four-Dimensional Supergravity Theories Arising from Superstrings. While pursuing her PhD, she received classes from Nobel Prize physicist Steven Weinberg. She was also a visiting professor at the Arnold Sommerfeld Center for theoretical physics in Munich, Germany.

Her 1990 article with Luis E. Ibañez, Dieter Lüst and Fernando Quevedo titled "Strong-weak coupling duality and non-perturbative effects in string theory" had a big influence in the second superstring revolution in 1995. It was in this article where the term S-duality was first used in this context.

Font has been actively involved in projects related to education in physics and mathematics in Venezuela and other countries. In July 2018, Physics Today magazine published an interview with Font about the status of science in Venezuela. The publication data base INSPIRE-HEP included three of her notorious publications into their data base.

She is a member of the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD).

Font is also a Severo Ochoa IFT (Instituto de Física Teórica) research associate.

Personal Life

Anamaria has 2 younger sisters, and a two half-siblings. In December 2017, Anamaria married Stefan Theisan, a physicist, after being together since 2001.

In 1998, she was awarded, jointly with Fernando Quevedo, the ICTP Prize in the field of High Energy Physics (in honour of Chen Ning Yang),

In 2023, Font was awarded the L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Awards, representing Latin America,

In November 2023, Font was named to the BBC's 100 Women list as one of the world's inspiring and influential women.

Selected publications Font has more than 50 publications with over 6000 citations. Below is a list of some of her publications.