Mónica Fernández-Aceytuno Saénz de Santa María (born 4 May 1961) is a Spanish biologist and writer focused on
public outreach on natural issues.
Career
Fernández-Aceytuno was born in
Dakhla, Western Sahara where her father, a military man, was assigned. Although she only spent a few years there, this time was fundamental in the formation of her character and her discovery of nature.
She earned a
licentiate in Biological Sciences from the
Complutense University of Madrid
The Complutense University of Madrid (, UCM; ) is a public research university located in Madrid. Founded in Alcalá in 1293 (before relocating to Madrid in 1836), it is one of the oldest operating universities in the world, and one of Spain's ...
in 1991 and began working at a laboratory. But after a few months' stay in Alaska, following in the footsteps of
Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente
Félix Samuel Rodríguez de la Fuente (March 14, 1928 – March 14, 1980) was a Spanish naturalist and broadcaster. He is best known for the highly successful and influential TV series, '' El Hombre y la Tierra'' (1974–1980). A graduate in m ...
, she decided to leave the lab and dedicate herself to
outreach
Outreach is the activity of providing services to any population that might not otherwise have access to those services. A key component of outreach is that the group providing it is not stationary, but mobile; in other words, it involves meetin ...
.
She began publishing articles in the newspaper ''
ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasting
* Aliw Broadcasting Corporation, Philippine broadcast company
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial American ...
'' in 1997, and for the digital media outlet ' in 2010. In 2007, she created her own Internet portal on which, with the sponsorship of the Aquae Foundation and the collaboration of readers, the ''Diccionario Aceytuno de la Naturaleza'' began.
In 2015, she began to make a series of videos and micro-documentaries for various media. In her works, Fernández-Aceytuno habitually conjugates and combines nature and poetry. In the same year, she also made a series of presentations on the
haiku
is a type of short form poetry that originated in Japan. Traditional Japanese haiku consist of three phrases composed of 17 Mora (linguistics), morae (called ''On (Japanese prosody), on'' in Japanese) in a 5, 7, 5 pattern; that include a ''kire ...
book ''Lógica Sencilla'' by her brother, real estate expert Juan Fernández-Aceytuno.
Awards and recognitions
In 2003, she received the ''Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente de Conservación de la Naturaleza''
National Environmental Award for her outreach work,
[ and in 2007 the Jaime de Foxá Literary Prize awarded by the Real Club de Monteros. One year later, in October 2008, she received the Medal of Honor for Professional Merit from the College of Forestry Engineers for her activity in the press and on the Internet. In 2016, she received the Outreach Communication award from the (''Festival Internacional de Cine Medioambiental de Canarias'', FICMEC).]
Works
* ''El viento en las hamacas'', Ediciones Luca de Tena, 2004,
* ''Diccionario Aceytuno de la Naturaleza'' (work in progress, carried out with the collaboration of readers)
* ''El país de los pájaros que duermen en el aire'', Espasa, 2018,
References
External links
*
''Diccionario Aceytuno de la Naturaleza''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fernandez-Aceytuno, Monica
1961 births
21st-century Spanish biologists
21st-century Spanish women writers
Complutense University of Madrid alumni
Living people
People from Dakhla, Western Sahara
Spanish science communicators
Spanish biologists
Women biologists