Giraldo Alayón García

Researcher from San Antonio de los Baños, who has participated in different scientific works and was an excellent professor throughout his life. Distinguished son of the locality for the merits and achievements obtained during his professional career.

He was born in San Antonio de los Baños, where he completed his primary and secondary studies at the public Academia Atenas School No. 3 and the secondary school "Domingo Lence". He participated in the National Literacy Campaign in the Luís Lazo area in Pinar del Río, teaching literacy to 4 peasants, for which he obtained the medals 25th Anniversary of the National Literacy Campaign and 40th Anniversary of the FAR.

He completed his Pre-University studies at the Pre-University Institute "Eduardo García Lavandero" in Artemisa. He studied a Bachelor's degree in Biological Sciences at the University of Havana, graduating in 1973 in the specialty of Entomology. He published his first scientific work in 1972, when he was a fourth-year student in the program. He obtained the degree of Doctor in Biological Sciences from the University of Havana.

As a child, Giraldo always liked superhero themes about space, science fiction, especially the Flash Gordon series and flying saucers. Once his father gave him a volume of Natural History which undoubtedly increased his interest in science.

He worked for 8 years at the former Institute of Zoology of the Academy of Sciences, eventually holding the position of Head of the Department of Entomology.

Between 1982 and 1984 he worked as a teacher in several pre-university and basic secondary schools in the municipality teaching the subjects of Astronomy, Biology, Physics and English and very briefly as a biologist at the Municipal Center for Hygiene and Epidemiology.

For 5 years he worked at the company for the Protection of Flora and Fauna of the Ministry of Agriculture, eventually holding the position of head of the Department of Conservation. Since 1988 he has worked at the National Museum of Natural History of the Environmental Agency of the Natural Ministry of the Environmental Agency as a curator of Arachnids.

Distinctions and Recognition
Between 1993 and 1995 he was appointed Senior Researcher "A" of the Research Center of Quintana Roo in Mexico and was director of the Arachnological Project of Yucatán with satisfactory results.

He has been an invited researcher and has given seminars and lectures on biodiversity and the origins of Cuba's fauna at the Universities of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, at the American Museum of Natural History and the Audubon Society all in the United States, at the Autonomous Universities of Mexico City and Santo Domingo at the University of Zaragoza in Spain and at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada.

He is a founding member of the Cuban Society of Zoology, and is also a member of the American Society of Arachnology, National Geographic and the Society of Comparative Studies.

In 1998 he was appointed principal researcher in the coordination of the study of arachnids on Navassa Island by the National Museum of Natural History and the Center for Marine Research, both in Washington, for which he participated in 1999 in the second joint scientific expedition to that island, discovering an appreciable number of new species for science.

On our grounds he has been a member of the Environmental Commission for 10 years (1982-1992), he wrote between 1978 and 1983 the first regular radio program on environmental topics that existed in Cuba called Wildlife from Radio Ariguanabo Station. He has been an active explorer and student of the biodiversity that the forest of our Ariguanabo River possesses.