Inside an Argentinian nuclear reactor, science and politics collide
At a facility on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, women are fighting budget cuts and inequality in the workplace.
In November 2023, after a gruelling and unusual election campaign, Argentina’s then president-elect, Javier Milei, took the stage in Buenos Aires to deliver a raucous victory speech. In it, he vowed to end an age of government spending “decadence” and to tackle the huge economic problems the country faced. “What we intend to do is eliminate corruption, eliminate inflation and lay the foundations of a healthy economy,” he later said.
With his populist approach and unusual campaigning style, the leader has drawn comparisons with the US president-elect Donald Trumpov. Milei became notorious during his campaign for waving around a chainsaw to demonstrate the depth of the cuts he’d make to the government if he was elected to take over from Alberto Fernández, whose left-of-centre government had led Argentina for the previous four years.
Argentina’s president Javier Milei (C-R), made a chainsaw a regular feature of his rallies during his 2023 election campaign.
Credit: LUIS ROBAYO/AFP via Getty
The Ezeiza Atomic Centre, built in 1951 in a suburb of Buenos Aires, is a nuclear research facility that currently houses the country’s largest research reactor.
Since he came to office in December 2023, Milei’s strategy to slice spending has seen him axe government departments and shed staff from government agencies. His aim is to cut inflation, which topped 250% last year, one of the highest rates in the world.
But he has social as well as economic priorities: Milei has described feminism as a “ridiculous and unnatural fight between man and woman”, and has shuttered various departments focused on gender equality and women’s health, including the Ministry of Women, Gender and Diversity and the Ministry of Education.
And he’s shown scant respect for science (even though he had his dog, named Conan, who died in 2017, cloned several times) by agreeing with other populist world leaders that climate change is a ‘hoax’ and ignoring evidence to the contrary.
Scientists at the Atomic Centre use a range of devices for isotope sample handling, including crucible tongs and Geiger counters.
Geiger counters measure the γ-ray dose rate of irradiated samples.
The cuts have affected scientists and researchers all around the country, including those who work directly for the government and academics who are funded by grants. It took large protests to force the government to raise funding for universities despite the heady inflation rates. And key construction projects on state infrastructure have stalled including the CAREM small modular reactor nuclear plant near Zárate, a prototype and one of the first reactors of its kind.
The country’s National Atomic Energy Commission (CNEA) is among those government departments that have found themselves under huge pressure and has warned it will soon be unable to carry out its activities. These include running the country’s nuclear reactors, which provide 10% of Argentina’s electricity, taking part in academic activities and providing radioisotopes for medicine. In May, the government accepted the resignation of physicist Adriana Serquis, who had led the CNEA since June 2021, after she criticized Milei’s deep cuts.
Serquis was the third woman to lead CNEA since its establishment in 1950, when Argentina became the first nation in South America to adopt nuclear power. In 2019, women made up around 30% of the workforce at the CNEA, but they occupied only about 5% of top leadership positions.
At the CNEA headquarters in Buenos Aires, 57% of the staff were women, mainly in administrative roles. At the organization’s atomic centres, where most of the engineering work takes place, women accounted for just 29% of employees.
MTR fuel elements are specialized components containing sheets of aluminium and uranium, which are designed to facilitate and sustain nuclear fission at nuclear plants.
A lead container helps shield researchers from a sample of molybdenum-99, as it undergoes a quality control test.
One of those is the Ezeiza Atomic Centre, in a western suburb of Buenos Aries and a two hour drive from the US$600-million building site where scientists had hoped CAREM would stand. Ezeiza is built around a 5-megawatt reactor and opened in December 1967.
In 1990, the facility underwent an upgrade, increasing its reactor power output to 10 megawatts. Today, the site, which has equipment and buildings dating back to the 1970s, serves as a hub for researchers producing radioisotopes for medical applications and those conducting experiments to advance the design of future reactors.
Earlier this year, a photographer working with Nature visited Ezeiza to show the women that work in the centre as they go about their work under the shadow of government cuts.
Head of the preclinical radiopharmacy division
Ana Clarisa López Bularte runs the facility’s radiopharmacy division, at which a team produce compounds, such as lutetium-177 and technetium-99m, used in radiation therapy and medical imaging.
After graduating from Argentina’s National University of Quilmes in Bernal, only 30 kilometres from Ezeiza, López Bularte joined the CNEA as a research scientist in 2008 before specializing in radiochemistry — a leap from her degree in biotechnology.
During her time at the CNEA, López Bularte has travelled to international conferences and workshops in countries, such as the United States and Greece, but this hasn’t always been easy. She recalls packing her bags for two weeks of training in South Korea and saying goodbye to her two-year-old and husband.
“Balancing a career with motherhood is a significant challenge for women,” she says. “I worried about pregnancy affecting my work, but surprisingly, it didn’t. Travelling for training or conferences abroad can also be tough, especially when your child is young — you want to progress but you also don’t want to be separated.”
“Without family support it is impossible,” she says.
Adviser at RA-3 reactor
Natalia Stankevicius joined CNEA in 2007, following in the footsteps of both her father, a nuclear engineer, and her mother, a librarian at the CNEA.
“I come from a nuclear family,” she says. “My father was a very passionate researcher and since I was young, he spoke about radiation. I remember going to the beach during the holidays where he explained to me how solar protection works.”
She says that early access to information and strong role models were crucial in her decision to pursue a career in science. “As women, we don't tend to envision ourselves in technical or scientific careers. We are usually pushed to play childhood games that go in a different direction. That didn’t happen to me, those experiences with my dad and my family marked a different path,” she says.
“As a woman, you must prove your knowledge and expertise all the time; if you are a man, this knowledge is granted.”
Radiochemical operation head at the radioisotopes plant
Gisele Lencina runs the plant’s isotope production facility, producing the molybdenum-99 and iodine-131 used in medical diagnostics and treatments. In this role, she works against the clock: the atomic products the team produce decay rapidly and so timing is key. For Lencina, it’s the thought of people waiting in hospital that provides daily motivation.
“Each day at 2 p.m. the doors open and you race against time from our centre to the hospitals and diagnostics centres or airports abroad. The delivery terms are very strict, so you must be quick,” says Lencina. The radioactive clock is always ticking, she says.
“Some products are for the terminally ill — we must remember a person could suffer less thanks to us,” she says. Medicine that uses samarium-153, which is manufactured at Ezeiza, accumulates in bone marrow, in which its radioactivity damages cancer cells and alleviates pain.
“The nuclear world can be cold, it’s important not to lose empathy.”
Researcher at the National Laboratory of Preclinical Imaging
When Lucila Rogulich was young, she did science experiments at home. “I wanted to know why things moved the way they did,” she says.
At 16, she attended a weekly course at the CNEA, which sparked her interest in the nuclear sector. Her first official role at the organization was as a radiobiology intern, but a CNEA scholarship saw her move into the field of neutron applications. She has since worked her way up the ladder to become a reactor researcher.
She says that she has “noticed an increase in women in managerial and decision-making positions” during her time with the organization. She’s seen some institutional changes, too. Rogulich, who has a one-year-old child, says that Ezeiza has a nursery to cater for employees with young children. Thanks to initiatives such as this, “the gender gap is narrowing”, she says.
Instrument scientist
Paula Curotto says that she wanted to be an astrophysicist when she was growing up, but, ultimately, she ended up in the nuclear world. Now, she’s training to be a radioprotection officer at Ezeiza. Curotto says that the nuclear technology she is working on plays an essential part in health care.
“Without a strong nuclear sector many wouldn’t have access to radioisotopes for diagnosis, as they are used in machines such as MRIs, and for treatment, for diseases such as cancer.”
She worries, therefore, about the cuts that the institute is facing. “We can’t take this away from people,” she says.
Argentina’s inflation rate was down in November to 166%. The federal budget was reduced by 30% in the first 10 months of Milei’s presidency, and close to 30,000 public employees lost their jobs, according to some reports. Rates of poverty in the country are climbing, but so too are fiscal surpluses. October marked the ninth consecutive month in which the national government’s revenue exceeded its expenditure. And on Monday, the country’s statistics agency announced that Argentina has exited the recession it entered in late 2023, with 3.9% growth over the third quarter of 2024. This is progress, Milei’s supporters argue.
Others see a gloomier picture.
“There are decisions whose effects are not seen today but will be evident in the long term, such as the lack of budget for technical education and the underfunding of science,” Stankevicius says.
“Without resources, it is difficult to advance in science and technology, especially in strategic areas. Nuclear is a sector strongly influenced by the state.”
This article is part of Nature Spotlight: Women in Latin America, an editorially independent supplement. Advertisers have no influence over the content.
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