Erna Frins

Erna Frins is a professor of physics at the Universidad de la República, Uruguay. She received her diploma in physics from TU Berlin in 1992 and her PhD in physics from Wolfgang Goethe University, Germany, in 1998. Frins was the 2012 laureate of the UNESCO - L'OREAL National Award for Women in Science. Between 2007 and 2011, Frins chaired the Uruguayan Physics Society and between 2022 and 2025 the National Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research of Uruguay. She leads a research group in pure and applied optics. Her research is focused on developing optical methods for atmospheric remote sensing. She joined NASA's AERONET project in 2019.