I had to go somewhere else to use what was at the time email-it was called BITNET. I don’t know how I managed to teach and do research. I had a very good offer from the Universidad Central, salaries were fine, working conditions were decent.Īt the beginning I had to teach a lot. I felt it was my obligation to go back, and I wanted to go back. My PhD was paid by a fellowship from the Venezuelan government, and the condition was that I had to return and work in academia. PT: What did you do after graduate school?įONT: I went to France for a postdoc, and after two years there I went back to Caracas. Weinberg was active in inviting people who worked at the frontiers, in the hot topics of the time. Also, Steven Weinberg had arrived there a year before, and John Wheeler was there. It was very lively-Fernando Quevedo and Cliff Burgess were there. Compared with other students, my level of preparation was high.įONT: One reason I liked it a lot was because there were so many Latin American students there in physics. They were trying to attract new students, and they got me.Īfter I graduated, I went to graduate school at the University of Texas at Austin. I was talking to people at the university, and the people in physics were very nice. I liked biology, chemistry, science, mathematics. The libraries were good, the labs were good. At the time it was new, and it was the best the country could offer. What for? And how long can we do it?”įONT: Simón Bolívar University. And she is looking for new opportunities. But she retired last year, earlier than she’d ever intended. What’s left is exile or further misery.”įor now, at least, Font is staying in the country where she was born and has spent most of her life. For most ordinary Venezuelans he knows, the “foreordained victory” of Nicolás Maduro’s reelection to the presidency on 20 May “snuffed out the last glimmer of hope that their lives can improve through democratic and peaceful means. Siberian-born journalist Anatoly Kurmanaev wrote in the Wall Street Journal on 26 May that Venezuela’s collapse “has been far worse than the chaos” he experienced in the post-Soviet meltdown. And Venezuelans are leaving the country in droves-in the first part of this year, an estimated 5000 departed each day. People who once lived comfortably are now scavenging the streets. Hyperinflation has made food, medical supplies, and other basic needs unavailable or unaffordable. The oil-rich country has gone from being the wealthiest per capita in Latin America to experiencing the deepest financial recession anywhere in decades.

In the past few years, Venezuela’s economy has nosedived. All of those opportunities have disappeared.” “I could travel, I could get support, I could get grants to buy computers,” says Font. Credit: Alejandra Camacho, Central University of Venezuelaīy her early 30s, Anamaría Font was a tenured professor, owned an apartment in Caracas, and was teaching and pursuing research in string theory.

Strings theory font