Pablo Pastén

As a child, Pablo Pastén used to accompany his father to rivers in Chile’s Atacama Desert. His father worked for the General Directorate of Water and would wade into the waterways to measure their flow. Pastén waited for him on the riverbank. “I would spend hours observing and asking myself questions about the rivers here in Chile,” Pastén says. “It was a very special moment.” Having grown up in Calama, a municipality deeply linked to the copper industry, he became especially interested in the waterways that flowed through mining environments. These childhood expeditions with his father marked the start of Pastén’s journey to become a lead researcher of the Center for Sustainable Urban Development (CEDEUS) in Chile, where he uses geochemistry to address societal challenges and influence public policy. One of the main issues that Pastén is working on through CEDEUS is the environmental impact of mining , an industry