Antígona Segura

Antígona Segura Peralta (born September 20, 1971) is a Mexican physicist and astrobiologist. Since 2006, she has been a researcher at the Institute of Nuclear Sciences of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and collaborator at the NASA Astrobiology Institute. As a feminist she actively advocates for the inclusion of women in the exact sciences, mathematics, and engineering. Segura has participated in several activities in and outside UNAM defending women's rights; she was awarded with the 2021 Hermila Galindo medal by the Congress of Mexico City.

She earned her doctorate in the Earth Sciences postgraduate program at UNAM with the thesis Fijación de nitrógeno por relámpagos volcánicos en el Marte primitivo (Nitrogen Fixation by Volcanic Lightning on Primitive Mars), advised by . From 2005 to 2006, she worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) associated with the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). the program of observations of Proxima Centauri with the MOST telescope, the program for the detection and characterization of planets around M dwarfs using echoes of light, and the MUSCLES Treasury Survey.

Her research work has been developed at various institutions, such as the UNAM Institute of Nuclear Sciences, the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and was the only candidate that proposed actions against gender inequality.

Antígona Segura was sanctioned by the National Autonomous University of Mexico in 2018, after she advocated for a female student who was the victim of a sexual assault by a fellow student. Honorable Mention in obtaining the degree of Doctor of Science in the area of spatial physics, UNAM Alfonso Caso Medal given to the best postgraduate students, UNAM

Member of the editorial board for the journal Astrobiology, 2010–2014

President of the Mexican Society of Astrobiology, 2011–2013 Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Recognition, UNAM, 2017

Publications Thesis

Books Tiempo de elegir sin miedo, Memorias de una astrobióloga (2016), Editorial Piedra Bezoar

Selected articles "Ozone concentrations and ultraviolet fluxes on Earth-like planets around other stars" (2003) "Biosignatures from Earth-like planets around M dwarfs" (2005)

"A reappraisal of the habitability of planets around M dwarf stars" (2007) "M stars as targets for terrestrial exoplanet searches and biosignature detection" (2007)