Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo (born 24 June 1962) is a Mexican politician, scientist, and academic. Sheinbaum served as Head of Government of Mexico City, a position equivalent to that of a state governor, from 2018 to 2023. Elected as the candidate of the leftist Juntos Haremos Historia coalition, she was both the first woman and first Jewish person to be elected to the position. She is a candidate for President of Mexico in the 2024 Mexican general election.
From 2000 to 2006, Sheinbaum served as Secretary of the Environment under future president Andrés Manuel López Obrador during his tenure as Head of Government. Sheinbaum served as Delegational Chief of the Tlalpan borough from 2015 to 2017 and was elected to lead the Federal District in the 2018 election. Sheinbaum was elected Head of Government in the 2018 election, where she ran a campaign that emphasized curbing crime and enforcing zoning laws.
A scientist by profession, Sheinbaum received her Ph.D. in energy engineering from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). As an academic, she authored over 100 articles and two books on the topics of energy, the environment, and sustainable development. Sheinbaum contributed to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. In 2018, she was listed as one of BBC's 100 Women.
On 12 June 2023, Sheinbaum resigned from her mayoral position to seek Morena's presidential nomination in the 2024 election. If elected, Sheinbaum would be the first woman to serve as President of Mexico. On 6 September, Sheinbaum secured the party's nomination over her nearest rival, former foreign secretary Marcelo Ebrard. Polling conducted in 2023 has found Sheinbaum to be favored in the 2024 election.
Early life
Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo was born to a secular Jewish family in Mexico City. Her father's Ashkenazi parents emigrated from Lithuania to Mexico City in the 1920s; her mother's Sephardic parents emigrated there from Sofia, Bulgaria, in the early 1940s to escape the Holocaust. She celebrated all the Jewish holidays at her grandparents' homes.
Both of her parents are scientists: her mother, Annie Pardo Cemo, is a biologist and professor emeritus of the Faculty of Sciences at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and her father, Carlos Sheinbaum Yoselevitz, is a chemical engineer. Her brother is a physicist.
Academic career
Sheinbaum studied physics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), where she earned an undergraduate degree ('89), followed by a master's ('94) and a PhD ('95) in energy engineering. She completed the work for her doctoral thesis in four years (1991–94) at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the U.S. state of California, where she analyzed the use of energy in Mexico's transportation, published studies on the trends of Mexican building energy use, and obtained a PhD in energy engineering and physics.
In 1995 she joined the faculty at UNAM's Institute of Engineering. She was a researcher at the Institute of Engineering and is a member of both the Sistema Nacional de Investigadores and the Mexican Academy of Sciences. In 1999 she received the prize of best UNAM young researcher in engineering and technological innovation.
In 2006 Sheinbaum returned to UNAM, after a period in government, publishing articles in scientific journals.
In 2007, she joined the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) at the United Nations in the field of energy and industry, as a contributing co-author on the topic "Mitigation of climate change" for the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report. The group won the Nobel Peace Prize that year. In 2013, she co-authored the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report alongside 11 other experts in the field of industry.
Early political career
During her time as a student at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, she was a member of the Consejo Estudiantil Universitario (University Student Council), a group of students that would become the founding youth movement of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD).
She was the Secretary of the Environment of Mexico City from 5 December 2000, having been appointed on 20 November 2000 to the cabinet of the Head of Government of Mexico City, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. During her term, which concluded in May 2006, she was responsible for the construction of an electronic vehicle-registration center for Mexico City. She also oversaw the introduction of the Metrobús, a bus rapid transit system with dedicated lanes, and the construction of the second story of the Anillo Periférico, Mexico City's ring road.