Nucleo Milenio CITEC
The Millennium Nucleus on Citizen Technoscience for Socio-Environmental Transformation (CITEC) is a research collective that seeks to map, analyze, and experiment with projects and initiatives in Chile and the Global South that are adopting citizen technoscience approaches to understand and address local manifestations of the socio-environmental crisis.
I am one of the Principal Investogators on this project that started in September 2024 and will finish in September 2027.
We get involved with citizen science projects, do outreach activities and over the 3 years, we want to have mapped and given recommendations on the state, importance and potential influence of citizen science in Chile. Check out the inventory report: Catastro de proyectos ciencia ciudadanas en Chile.
Amigos del río Aconcagua
The project I have been most involved with is Amigos del río Aconcagua, which we set up in October 2025 and will be leading until September 2027 when we aim to leave the project to be self-sufficient. The project has 6 measurement points (see map below) from close to the coast (Concón) up to río Colorado, on the road up towards the border with Argentina and the mighty peak of Cerro Aconcagua (6960 m), as well as a point in the río Putaendo. There are 3 backpacks with the instruments and each group shares this backpack with another point, which means the groups have to keep good relations with the other points and communicate as an entire water-shed. Read this article to find out more about the project or watch this talk from July 2026 see the instrument description below.
Follow on instagram @amigosdelrioaconcagua
We have just started measuring using the database Kobocollect and the data is plotted on this very visual web site that was designed by Amy Tyndall and Scott Pirrie from Edinburgh. We hope to be able to teach other communities doing participatory environmental monitoring how to use the Kobocollect and interactive website.
Map of the 6 monitoring stations in Amigos del río Aconcagua
Instruments used in Amigos del río
A few highlights of the outreach work I have done with CITEC are the stands we have worked on (Festival Ladera Sur) and in San Pedro de Atacama. I assisted on a weekend activity where CITEC collaborated with CEDESUS Pichilemu and invited many environmentalists from teh O.Higgins region to learn about environmental monitoring. See the video below.