María Isabel Studer Noguez

María Isabel Studer Noguez is President of Sostenibilidad Global, a non-profit organization focused on building bridges between the private sector and NGOs, communities and local governments to address complex problems associated with the energy transition and climate. She was Director of Alianza University of California-Mexico, Director for Strategic Initiatives for Latin America and executive director for Mexico and Northern Central America of The Nature Conservancy. She was Director General for International Economic Cooperation at the Mexican Agency for International Cooperation, where she launched the Partnership for Sustainability with the aim of engaging the private sector in developing public-private projects around the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. For almost a decade, she was a professor and researcher in international relations at the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (Tec de Monterrey), principally working as the director of the Instituto Global para la Sostenibilidad (IGS), formerly the Centro de Diálogo y Análysis sobre América del Norte (CEDAN). She began her academic career working in international relations and has held positions in both Mexico and the United States teaching, researching, advising and writing on topics related to international relations, especially in North America, business and environmental issues. Her publications include books, scholarly articles as well as articles and columns for various media.

Today, she is Senior Fellow of The Atlantic Council's Adrienne Arscht Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center, chair of the Board of Sostenibilidad Global and Inciativa Climática de México (ICM), member of the Board of Directors of the World Environment Center, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)'s Environment of Peace, the Sustainability Experts Advisory Group of Dow Chemical, and the Advisory Council for Water (Mexico).

Education Studer received her bachelor's degree in international relations from the Colegio de México in 1986. She received her masters (1990) and doctorate (1997) in international relations from the School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University. Her dissertation was “MNE’s Global Strategies and Government Policies in the Automobile Industry: Ford Motor Company in North America.” In 1993 she did her field research at the Canadian Embassy in Washington. During her studies, Studer received several scholarships including a Fulbright Scholarship in 1988, Galo Plaza Fellowship of the Inter-American Dialogue in 1990, the SAIS scholarship and a scholarship from CONACYT. She is fluent in Spanish, English and French.

Career

Academic career She has been a tenured professor and researcher at a number of prestigious Mexican universities and institutions.

Work in government Studer began her career as a staff member at the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington, DC from 1990 to 1991. Since then, she has held a number of public policy positions in Mexico and the United States. In 2001, she was the deputy director general for North America at the Secretaría del Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales, as well as an alternate representative to the Commission for Environmental Cooperation of North America (CEC). From 2005 to 2006 she was the research director for the Commission for Labor Cooperation in Washington, DC. In 2010, she joined the research program on climate change at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). In 2011 she became a member of the Beyond Banking Program committee of the Inter-American Development Bank, and in 2012 a member of the evaluation committee of the Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores. Dr. Studer was ca member of the Consejo de Cambio Climático (Climate Change Board) with the Secretaría de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales, which advises the president on issues regarding the topic.

Tec de Monterrey/Instituto Global para la Sostenibilidad Her research work has been related to the effects of interdependency and its relation to the global economy.

As a professor and researcher for the Tec de Monterrey, Mexico City campus, she lectured with graduate level classes in sustainable development and other topics at the EGADE Business School. She founded and coordinated the Negocios Verdes (Green Business Summit) program. From 2001 to 2005, she was a columnist on international affairs for the newspaper El Universal, later becoming a member of the editorial board of the Reforma publication. She has also served as a commentator at El Palenque of Animal Político.

In 2013, she received the Académico-Científico award from the Petroleo & Energia magazine as part of their Los 100 Líderes del Sector Energía (100 Leaders in the Energy Sector) 2013 event. Dr. Studer was a member of Mexico's Sistema Nacional de Investigadores from 1994 to 2017, reaching Level II status in 2009.

Publications

Books Designing Integration: Regional Governance on Climate Change in North America, edited with Neil Craik & Deborah VanNijnatten, Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2013. (to be published). “Aportaciones de un internacionalista mexicano”. (Input of a Mexican internationalist) Author: Carlos Rico Ferrat. The College of Mexico . Mexico. November 2012. Compilation. Réquiem or Revival?: The Promise of North American Integration, edited with Carol Wise, Washington DC: The Brookings Institution, 2007. Ford Global Strategies and the North American Auto Industry, Routledge Series of International Business and the World Economy, London: Routledge, 2002. “La economía política de la integración regional”, (The political economy of the regional integration), virtual textbook, Masters on Regional Integration, University of Murcia (Spain), the Ortega y Gasset University Institute (Spain) and the International Institute on Government, Management and Policy de Georgetown University (United States), 2003.

Journal articles “Modern Mexico: Shaping the Future”. In: “2012: A New Mexican Vision for North America?” Task Force Policy Papers, University of Miami. Miami. December 2012.

“Mercado de trabajo y capital humano en América del Norte”. (Labor market, human capital and labor mobility in North America). In: Foro Internacional. Vol. 52, No. 03, 2012. “Who controls North America”. In: Literary Review of Canada. Vol. 20, No. 03., April 2012. Review. “A joint research agenda”. In: Canada Among Nations 2011–2012. McGill-Queen's University Press 2012 “Una agenda de investigación común”. (A joint research agenda) In: México y Canadá: La agenda pendiente. (Mexico and Canada: The outstanding agenda). Mexican Council on Foreign Relations. Mexico. 2012. “Mexico-Canadá: el camino hacia una sociedad estratégica”. (Mexico-Canada: The road to a strategic partnership). In: Revista Mexicana de Política Exterior. Issue #92. Mexico. March–June 2011.