A high school teacher in Querétaro has been named by the Varkey Foundation as one of the 10 best teachers in the world.

Diana Lorena Rubio Navarro has made the final 10 for the Global Teacher Prize 2021 for her work at the Center for Industrial Technology and Services Baccalaureate (CBTIS) in Corregidora, Querétaro. She holds a doctorate in neurobiological science from the National Autonomous University and started teaching biology in 2011.

Finalists were selected from 8,000 applications and nominations from 121 countries for the seventh edition of the contest, which will award US $1 million to the winner.

One of Rubio’s priorities is to promote the interest of women and girls in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) careers, the Varkey Foundation said. Last year, she won a national teaching prize for her work educating in STEM. The 1 million pesos (about $49,000) prize was used to buy materials for the science club at her school.

The Varkey Foundation lauded “her incredible work ethic and appetite to be a positive force for change,” and added that Rubio found teaching and “contact with young people to be mágical.”

The teacher participates in conferences at national events and is a co-founder of media platform Scienko México and Mujeresteam.dgeti,  an online community which promotes women in STEM.

The Varkey Foundation said it set up the prize to “recognize one exceptional teacher who has made an outstanding contribution to the profession as well as to shine a spotlight on the important role teachers play in society,” and to “unearth thousands of stories of heroes that have transformed young people’s lives.”

The other nine teachers are from Canada, the Philippines, the United States, the United Kingdom, Ghana, France, Australia and Iran.

Last year, Indian village teacher Ranjitsinh Disale, who tranformed the lives of young girls, was named the winner.

With reports from Milenio