Cuban Science in mourning, José Luis García Cuevas died

September 23, 2021

García Cuevas, former rector and Doctor Honoris Causa in Technical Sciences at the Central University "Marta Abreu" of Las Villas (UCLV), Dr. C. José Luis García Cuevas, passed away suddenly on the afternoon of September 21 in Havana.

José Luis began his professional career at UCLV in 1970. At this institution of higher learning he worked as a professor and researcher. He served as vice dean and later dean of the Faculty of Technologies, then Faculty of Electrical Engineering. At the Central University he assumed the responsibility of vice rector of research and postgraduate studies in the 1980s.

In 1990 he was appointed rector of UCLV until 1996, where he faced the strongest years of the Special Period with the task of charting the course of this university community amid a very complex socioeconomic scenario. José Luis García deployed arduous work for the strengthening and development of science and innovation activities at this university. He was a founder of the Scientific-Productive Pole of Villa Clara.

Known among his closest friends as "the Galician José Luis," for his Asturian origin, the Electrical Engineer and researcher in the area of university science and innovation management, García Cuevas boasts extensive work as vice minister, director and advisor of the Ministry of Higher Education (MES).

Member of the Academy of Sciences of Cuba, he held the Order Carlos J. Finlay, the distinctions For Cuban Education and Rafael María de Mendive, among other recognitions that attest to his professional and scientific work. At the time of his death he was serving as an advisor to the MES and member of the Executive Team of the National Innovation Council (an advisory body to contribute to the country's development).

With the death of José Luis García Cuevas, Cuban higher education and science lose a great scientist with high values of humanism, modesty and simplicity.