María Elena Álvarez-Buylla Roces (born July 11, 1959) is a Mexican professor of molecular genetics at National Autonomous University of Mexico and the director of the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología appointed by Andrés Manuel López Obrador in 2018.

She remained at the National Autonomous University of Mexico for her master's degree, where she investigated Cecropia from Los Tuxtlas.

[2] After earning her PhD Álvarez-Buylla was appointed a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, San Diego, where she worked in La Jolla on molecular genetics.

Álvarez-Buylla has worked in both experimental and theoretical science, developing models that can predict phenotypic patterns, and monitor the role of the environment in complex feedback networks.

She co-founded, with numerous other scientists, the Mexico Union of Scientists Committed to Society, and has called for more research to be done into the impact of genetically modified crops while using her position as head of Mexico’s ministry of science and technology to thwart research in biotechnology[7] In 2018 Álvarez-Buylla became the first woman to be appointed the Director of the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACYT).

[8] In this capacity, she is the primary scientific advisor to Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the President of Mexico, and in charge of the $1.5 billion budget.

[10] As head of CONACYT, Álvarez-Buylla has been instrumental in contributing to the centralization of science and technology governance in Mexico by reducing the role of civil society organizations in the sector and actively shaping the administration of higher education institutions against the will of their researchers, students, and workers.