Dr. Esthela Irene Sotelo Núñez is a political scientist with a Bachelor’s degree in Politics and Social Management from the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Xochimilco campus. She holds a Master’s and a Ph.D. in Urban and Environmental Studies from El Colegio de México. She currently serves as the Secretary General of the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (UAM), a position to which she was appointed on August 1, 2025, by the General Rector, Dr. Gustavo Pacheco López, for the 2025–2029 term.

She works as a full-time professor and researcher at the Division of Social Sciences and Humanities at UAM-Xochimilco. Before taking her current position, she directed this Division (2023–2025), led the Department of Politics and Culture, and coordinated the Master’s in Public Policy program.

Since 2011, Dr. Sotelo Núñez has trained specialists in analyzing complex public issues through public policy studies. She teaches undergraduate courses in “Comparative Politics” and “Public Policies” in the Politics and Social Management program, as well as graduate-level courses in “Agenda and Problem Definition” and “Methodology for Public Policy Analysis” in the Master’s in Public Policy program.

Her research focuses on the formulation, design, implementation, and evaluation of urban-environmental policies, especially those related to the management and access to natural resources, with particular emphasis on water. Her current research explores the relationship between access to water and urban poverty, using the Mexico Basin as a case study. Her main areas of interest include environmental policy and governance, urban governments and the environment, and integrated water resource management.

Dr. Sotelo Núñez has written and co-authored numerous scholarly articles and book chapters on water access and public policy. She has delivered invited lectures at national and international institutions such as the Senate of the Republic, the Chamber of Deputies, the National University of Colombia, the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the University of Minas Gerais (Brazil), El Colegio de México, El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, and the International Water Resources Association.

In environmental planning and management, she contributed to developing a methodology for assigning municipalities to hydrological basins and created criteria for incorporating a watershed-based approach into ecological land-use planning. The Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT) endorsed and published these tools, which now support various regional and local ecological planning initiatives and environmental policy design.

Her public-sector experience includes roles in federal environmental institutions such as the Directorate for Integrated Watershed Management at the National Institute of Ecology, the Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources, and the World Meteorological Organization. Between 2005 and 2008, she represented the National Institute of Ecology on Mexico’s Water Sector Standardization Committee. In 2007, the European Soil Society honored her with the “Best Poster Award” for her research on soil conservation policy in Mexico.