Baja Research Center : Institute in Ensenada Hailed by Scientists

When the new science school first opened its doors here in 1973, Luis Munguia held campus identification card No. 1 of the 20 graduate students in oceanography.

Now, only 13 years later, the little school has become one of Mexico’s most respected science institutes and Munguia has become head of the prestigious seismology department at the Center for Scientific Research and Higher Education. Popularly known by its acronym Cicese, it houses 72 professors and 140 graduate students on a rocky promontory overlooking this rapidly growing fishing port about 70 miles south of the U.S.-Mexican border.

In addition to the earth science and ocean research divisions, Cicese’s glass-and-steel buildings also include an applied physics component specializing in telecommunications and high-quality optics. Its academic connections with neighboring government astronomical and fisheries institutes, as well as the Autonomous University of Baja California, have made Ensenada--despite its physical isolation from mainland Mexico--a major science center in the country.

Cicese scientists, among other projects, have set up earthquake monitoring stations throughout Baja California and along Mexico’s Pacific Coast, studied currents in the Gulf of California, monitored fishing problems and designed an optics industry for their country.

They also maintain strong ties to American research campuses, in particular the world-renowned Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. There are several ongoing joint projects in oceanography, seismology and geology between Cicese researchers and their counterparts abroad. The across-the-border contacts also help ameliorate the financial problems faced by Cicese and all Mexican academic institutions because of the country’s serious economic problems.

“We are the oldest, the largest and most diverse, and I think the best of 27 similar institutes (subsequently established throughout Mexico),” said Francisco Suarez, the professor who directs the earth sciences division at Cicese.

The recently retired longtime director of Scripps, William Nierenberg, said Cicese “deserves and should receive tremendous recognition for what it has done.” Nierenberg, known for precise evaluations, praised the institute for outstanding work. “We genuinely enjoy working with their people,” he said.

Added Scripps Prof. Charles Cox, who has worked with Mexican colleagues for more than a quarter-century: “Cicese is one of the most remarkable examples of a Third World country building up a research program from scratch and getting it to fly.”

In a sense, Cicese can be seen as a small Mexican version of Scripps. Indeed, the origins of Cicese are due partly to earlier efforts of Scripps scientists to promote oceanographic work below the border.

“Cicese started as a project of Prof. Nicholas Grijalva,” Suarez said. At the time, Grijalva, an internationally known oceanographer, was serving as director of a small undergraduate marine sciences school in Ensenada that Scripps officials had helped establish in the 1960s. (That school is now part of the University of Baja California.)

“Grijalva was also teaching part time at Scripps and had the idea that a separate research organization was needed in Mexico because it would be worthwhile to develop scientific expertise in Mexico,” said Cox, a close friend of Grijalva. “And he was politically skilled to be able to accomplish it.”

Initially, the new institute functioned as an oceanographic field station for the national university, where Grijalva had also previously taught. But in 1973, when the university decided not to continue funding after a year, Grijalva was able to convince the then-president of Mexico, Luis Echevarria, to issue a proclamation establishing Cicese as a national institution of public interest with funding directly from the federal budget.

“That was the key factor in keeping Cicese going independently,” Suarez said.

Cox said that Echevarria, as an economist, was sympathetic to Grijalva’s arguments that Mexico was paying a lot of money abroad for expertise in the sciences. “But Grijalva was also wise to connect Cicese strongly to Scripps to help build the institute up (more quickly) than possible otherwise.”

Grijalva’s successor, marine chemist Saul Alvarez, has been instrumental in calling attention to Cicese throughout the scientific world. In addition, he has kept standards for admission high and recruits many of Mexico’s top undergraduates in the sciences.

“I can’t say enough about his ability in having made Ensenada today perhaps the most exciting scientific environment in all of Mexico,” said George Hemingway, who coordinates inter-American projects for Scripps.

Alvarez quickly expanded Cicese’s research scope beyond oceanography. When the national university selected Ensenada as a site for an astronomical laboratory, Cicese became the support facility, undertaking its initial work in high-quality optics.

After Scripps seismologist James Brune proposed a chain of earthquake sensors through the Baja gulf area in the early 1970s, Cicese established its seismology department to maintain the equipment and recruited one of Mexico City’s top seismologists to be the first chairman. The department is now Mexico’s largest outside the capital for earthquake study.

Suarez listed several examples of recent Cicese research projects. Among them:

- A successful oyster breeding program at the bay in San Quintin, about 200 miles south of Ensenada. Experimenting with Japanese oysters, marine ecologists have been able to grow the oyster larvae in the warmer Pacific waters. The oysters are now being grown commercially in San Quintin as well as in the state of Sonora off Mexico’s mainland.

- An automated network of seismic monitoring stations in northern Baja California connected to Cicese computers in Ensenada by radio. Munguia’s researchers and graduate students use the data to map as-yet poorly understood faults in the area, many of which continue into Southern California. The data is being used in revamping building codes to strengthen structures, especially utilities, throughout the rapidly urbanizing Baja border areas of Tijuana and Mexicali.

- Design of components for Mexico’s first two telecommunications satellites, which were launched in November 1985. The satellites have enormous potential for Baja because the peninsula is not connected by ground communications lines to mainland Mexico and existing radio links are not always sufficient.

Cicese scientists are also studying the growing pollution problems of offshore Baja California. “Any way we can, we are trying to warn people about (threats) to the environment,” Suarez said. “It is being done jointly with the marine sciences (department) at the university.”

Results from a three-year joint project with Scripps to study currents in the Gulf of California will soon be published and further work is planned, Clinton Winant of Scripps said. And Cicese seismologists, together with those from UC Santa Cruz, recently published results of their post-earthquake studies from the devastating Mexico City quake in September, 1985.

“I can honestly say that the work they do and we do is absolutely equal,” Winant said. “They have excellent people and are hampered only by a lack of money. They are all capable of first-class work; the question is at what scale.”

Suarez said Mexico’s sagging economy has caused numerous problems for the institute, from recruiting to purchase of new equipment. Many Mexican professors hold down part-time jobs, and such work is harder to come by in Ensenada than in Mexico City, where, Suarez smiled, “Every professor has three jobs.”

But the proximity of Cicese to California offsets the recruiting problem, in part because it offers easier access to American colleagues and equipment, he said. Conferences are held annually between Cicese and Scripps to share ideas and results, and Scripps helps the Ensenada institute with library and equipment acquisitions.

“By any university standard, they have a good library because Alvarez understands that a research library is essential to good work,” Hemingway said. “And Alvarez also has set up a very, very fine machine shop to allow Cicese to become as independent as it can on many items vital for research, such as printed circuits, casings to hold equipment for deep sea work and other components that go into instruments.”

Hemingway said that Cicese shows no nationalistic concerns about taking assistance from foreign colleagues and, by the same token, requires no patronizing treatment from abroad.

“They publish in top international journals and receive the respect and criticism of the international scientific community,” he said.