Kathrin Barboza Márquez

Kathrin Barboza Márquez (born 1983) is a Bolivian biologist who is an expert in bat research. In 2006, she and a research partner discovered a species thought to be extinct and in 2010, she was awarded the National Geographic's "Young Explorer Grant". She became the first Bolivian scientist to win a L'Oréal-UNESCO Fellowship for Women in Science in 2012 and in 2013 was named by the BBC as one of the top ten Latin American women of science.

Biography Kathrin Barboza Márquez was born in 1983 and grew up in Cochabamba, Bolivia. She is the only daughter of Mario Pablo Barboza Céspedes and María Alcira Márquez Zurita. She attended the Universidad Mayor de San Simón (UMSS) and studied at the Center of Biodiversity and Genetics. In 2003, Barboza Márquez was studying biology with a focus on conservation. As punishment for losing a bet with friends, she had to attend a lecture on bats by Dr. Luis Aguirre, a visiting professor and bat expert. Little did Barboza Márquez know that it would change the course of her life and career. "I went and was immediately hooked by everything I heard," she remembers with a smile. "I didn't know how important they [bats] were, that there were so many variations, that they ate so many things." "Generally, people have negative perceptions about bats: that they are bad luck, that they suck blood, that they're a menace, but that's not true," Kathrin shares. As a student, she researched the reproductive patterns of fruit bats for her thesis and worked with her mentor Aideé Vargas to conduct a year-long expedition to track down the Nariz de Espada (the sword-nosed bat), a species believed to have become extinct in Bolivia since the early 1930s. The species, known as the Bolivian sword-nosed bat (Lonchorhina aurita) is now protected in an area of the Santa Cruz Department known as the Ecological Sanctuary of the Town of San Juan de Corralito located in the Ángel Sandoval Province. and their benefits to society. Primarily, the two types of bats are insect-eating and pollinating. Those that eat insects provide important pest-control services to zoomophilous plants including the agave from which tequila is made, mangoes, bananas and guavas. As part of her doctorate research, Barboza Márquez studied the bat species in Madrid in conjunction with the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales,

Upon completion of her work in Panama, Barboza Márquez won the 2009 National Geographic, Young Explorer Scholarship Grant. She used the scholarship funds to conduct research on the acoustics of bats in the Beni Savanna of northern Bolivia. She created one of the first libraries of echolocation frequencies for insectivorous bats in Bolivia.

In 2012, she was awarded one of the L'Oréal-UNESCO Fellowships for Women in Science and became the first Bolivian to win the award. "I remember crying with happiness and pride for being able to represent Bolivia at an event of that magnitude because we know that science in Latin America is not valued. So, for me, this reinforced how important it was to champion girls and women in science back in my country and in Latin America." She used her award to further her study of the ultrasound spectrum of bats, which is not within the human hearing range. The manner of the call, frequency, duration and pulse-intervals are recorded to determine whether bats are communicating or are searching for food. The recordings also help to determine which species live in certain areas.

In 2013, she was named as one of the ten leading women scientists of Latin America by the BBC.