Claudia Sheinbaum facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Claudia Sheinbaum
|
|
|---|---|
Sheinbaum in 2022
|
|
| Head of Government of Mexico City | |
| In office 5 December 2018 – 16 June 2023 |
|
| Preceded by | José Ramón Amieva |
| Succeeded by | Martí Batres |
| Mayor of Tlalpan | |
| In office 1 October 2015 – 6 December 2017 |
|
| Preceded by | Héctor Hugo Hernández Rodríguez |
| Succeeded by | Fernando Hernández Palacios |
| Secretary of the Environment of the Federal District |
|
| In office 5 December 2000 – 15 May 2006 |
|
| Mayor | Andrés Manuel López Obrador |
| Preceded by | Alejandro Encinas Rodríguez |
| Succeeded by | Eduardo Vega López |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo
24 June 1962 Mexico City, Mexico |
| Political party | National Regeneration Movement (since 2014) |
| Other political affiliations |
Party of the Democratic Revolution (1989–2014) |
| Spouse |
Carlos Ímaz Gispert
(m. 1987; div. 2016) |
| Domestic partners | Jesús María Tarriba (2016–present; engaged) |
| Children | 2 |
| Education | National Autonomous University of Mexico (BS, MS, PhD) |
| Signature |  |
Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo (born 24 June 1962) is a Mexican politician, scientist, and academic. Sheinbaum served as Head of Government of Mexico City, a position equivalent to that of a state governor, from 2018 to 2023. Elected as the candidate of the leftist Juntos Haremos Historia coalition, she was both the first woman and first Jewish person to be elected to the position. She is a candidate for President of Mexico in the 2024 Mexican general election.
From 2000 to 2006, Sheinbaum served as Secretary of the Environment under future president Andrés Manuel López Obrador during his tenure as Head of Government. Sheinbaum served as Delegational Chief of the Tlalpan borough from 2015 to 2017 and was elected to lead the Federal District in the 2018 election. Sheinbaum was elected Head of Government in the 2018 election, where she ran a campaign that emphasized curbing crime and enforcing zoning laws.
A scientist by profession, Sheinbaum received her Ph.D. in energy engineering from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). As an academic, she authored over 100 articles and two books on the topics of energy, the environment, and sustainable development. Sheinbaum contributed to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. In 2018, she was listed as one of BBC's 100 Women.
On 12 June 2023, Sheinbaum resigned from her mayoral position to seek Morena's presidential nomination in the 2024 election. If elected, Sheinbaum would be the first woman to serve as President of Mexico. On 6 September, Sheinbaum secured the party's nomination over her nearest rival, former foreign secretary Marcelo Ebrard. Polling conducted in 2023 has found Sheinbaum to be favored in the 2024 election.
Contents
Early life
Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo was born to a secular Jewish family in Mexico City. Her father's Ashkenazi parents emigrated from Lithuania to Mexico City in the 1920s; her mother's Sephardic parents emigrated there from Sofia, Bulgaria, in the early 1940s to escape the Holocaust. She celebrated all the Jewish holidays at her grandparents' homes.
Both of her parents are scientists: her mother, Annie Pardo Cemo, is a biologist and professor emeritus of the Faculty of Sciences at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and her father, Carlos Sheinbaum Yoselevitz, is a chemical engineer. Her brother is a physicist.
Academic career
Sheinbaum studied physics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), where she earned an undergraduate degree ('89), followed by a master's ('94) and a PhD ('95) in energy engineering. She completed the work for her doctoral thesis in four years (1991–94) at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the U.S. state of California, where she analyzed the use of energy in Mexico's transportation, published studies on the trends of Mexican building energy use.
In 1995 she joined the faculty at UNAM's Institute of Engineering. She was a researcher at the Institute of Engineering and is a member of both the Sistema Nacional de Investigadores and the Mexican Academy of Sciences. In 1999 she received the prize of best UNAM young researcher in engineering and technological innovation.
In 2006 Sheinbaum returned to UNAM, after a period in government, publishing articles in scientific journals.
In 2007, she joined the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) at the United Nations in the field of energy and industry, as a contributing co-author on the topic "Mitigation of climate change" for the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report. The group won the Nobel Peace Prize that year. In 2013, she co-authored the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report alongside 11 other experts in the field of industry.
Early political career
During her time as a student at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, she was a member of the Consejo Estudiantil Universitario (University Student Council), a group of students that would become the founding youth movement of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD).
She was the Secretary of the Environment of Mexico City from 5 December 2000, having been appointed on 20 November 2000 to the cabinet of the Head of Government of Mexico City, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. During her term, which concluded in May 2006, she was responsible for the construction of an electronic vehicle-registration center for Mexico City. She also oversaw the introduction of the Metrobús, a bus rapid transit system with dedicated lanes, and the construction of the second story of the Anillo Periférico, Mexico City's ring road.
López Obrador included Sheinbaum in his proposed cabinet for the Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources as part of his campaign for the 2012 presidential election. In 2014 she joined López Obrador's splinter movement which broke away from the mainstream left-wing party, the Party of the Democratic Revolution. She served as Secretary of the Environment in 2015.
Mayor of Tlalpan
From the end of 2015, Sheinbaum served as the mayor of Tlalpan. She resigned from the position upon receiving the nomination for the candidacy of the mayor of Mexico City for the Juntos Haremos Historia (Together We Will Make History) coalition, consisting of the National Regeneration Movement (MORENA), the Labor Party (PT), and the Social Encounter Party (PES).
Mayor of Mexico City
2018 election
In August 2017, Sheinbaum was selected as Morena's candidate in the 2018 election for Mayor of Mexico City over Ricardo Monreal and Martí Batres. As a candidate, Sheinbaum named fighting crime and enforcing zoning laws to prevent overdevelopment as policy priorities.
During her term in office, Sheinbaum was accused by the PAN of being culpable for the collapse of an elementary school in a 7.1-level earthquake that killed 19 children in 2017.
On 1 July 2018, Sheinbaum was elected to a six-year term as the head of the government of the Federal District of Mexico City, defeating six other candidates. She became both Mexico City's first elected female mayor and its first Jewish mayor.
Tenure
In June 2019, Sheinbaum announced a new six-year environmental plan. It includes reducing air pollution by 30%, planting 15 million trees, banning single-use plastics and promoting recycling, building a new waste separation plant, providing water service to every home, constructing 100 kilometers of corridors for the exclusive use of trolleybus lines and the Mexico City Metrobús system, and constructing and installing solar water heaters and solar panels.
In September 2019, Sheinbaum announced a 40 billion peso (US$2 billion) investment to modernize the Mexico City Metro over the next five years, including modernization, re-strengthening, new trains, improving stations, stairways, train control and automation, user information, and payment systems. The construction of 200 kilometers of bicycle paths, six bicycle stations, 2,500 new bicycles for the Ecobici system, subsidies for public transportation, and the introduction of the Cablebús cable car system in the Iztapalapa borough have aimed to alleviate traffic congestion and improve transit.
As part of her administration's education policy, the "Mi Beca para Empezar" scholarship program was created for 1.2 million students from preschool to secondary education, later elevated to constitutional law in Mexico City. The Rosario Castellanos Institute of Higher Studies and the University of Health were created. In addition, community centers called Pilares ("Pillars") were established in marginalized neighborhoods and towns to promote arts, sports, education, and cultural activities. Sheinbaum was nominated by the City Mayors Foundation for the World Mayor Prize in 2021 in North America for her handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in Mexico.
In 2021, Sheinbaum removed a Christopher Columbus statue in Mexico city.
2024 presidential candidacy
Ahead of the 2024 presidential election, it was announced on 12 June 2023 that she would resign her post as Mexico City's mayor on 16 June. On 6 September 2023, she was officially chosen for the party's nomination in the 2024 election, defeating former foreign secretary Marcelo Ebrard. Sheinbaum has criticized the neoliberal economic policies of past presidents of Mexico, arguing that they have contributed to inequality in the country.
Political views
Social issues
Sheinbaum has described herself as a feminist. A supporter of LGBT rights, Sheinbaum presided over Mexico City instituting a gender-neutral policy for school uniforms. In 2022, she became the first Head of Government of Mexico City to attend the city's pride march.
Personal life
In 1986, Sheinbaum met politician Carlos Ímaz Gispert, to whom she was married from 1987 to 2016. She has one daughter from this marriage (Mariana, born in 1988, who in 2019 was studying for a doctorate in philosophy at the University of California at Santa Cruz), and also became stepmother to Rodrigo Ímaz Alarcón (born in 1982; now a filmmaker).
In 2016, she began dating Jesús María Tarriba, a financial risk analyst for the Bank of Mexico. They had met prior in the 1980s during their university years. In November 2023, Sheinbaum announced their engagement on social media.
During the COVID-19 pandemic in Mexico, Sheinbaum tested positive for COVID-19 on 27 October 2020, but was asymptomatic.
See also
In Spanish: Claudia Sheinbaum para niños
