The University
History
Doctors Honoris Causa
Date of conferment: 10th of December 2021
Juan Ramón Cuadrado Roura (Gerona, 1938) is an honorary professor at the University of Alcalá de Henares and director of the PhD programme at the Camilo José Cela University (both in Madrid). He has also been awarded honorary doctorates from the universities of Málaga, Jaén and Granada, and has been honoured by the National Autonomous University of Mexico and the Private Technical University of Ecuador in Latin America. Last September, he was elected a Fellow of Regional Science Association International (RSAI).
Juan Ramón Cuadrado Roura has authored more than 62 books and monographs with prestigious national and international publishers, acted as principal investigator in 39 research contracts funded by international, national and regional public entities and private Spanish institutions, been the principal investigator for 27 other projects linked to national and international organisations, supervised and co-supervised more than 40 doctoral theses and served as an expert and advisor for such organisations such as the OECD, European Commission, World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank and Asian Development Bank, as well as for the governments of Spain, Portugal and Italy, and several Spanish autonomous communities. In addition to this, he has sat on more than a dozen editorial boards of national and international scientific journals and has acted as expert evaluator for many others.
The distinguished full professor has a doctorate in economics from the Complutense University of Madrid (1970), from which he also graduated in economics, business studies and political science. His main research interests focus on economic policy; European Union economics and polices; regional and urban economics and policies, service sector economics and policies; economic growth, economic accounting and income distribution, convergence and related projects. During the transition to democracy in Spain, he served as Secretary General of the Ministry of Transport, Tourism and Communications from 1982 to 1986. He went on to become a member of and then to chair Spain’s Privatisation Advisory Council.
A committed, brilliant, down-to-earth academic
In his nomination for honorary doctor, the UPNA’s School of Economics and Business Administration highlighted, in addition to his ‘outstanding professional career’, the professor's role as a teacher for other university professors and his transmission not only of knowledge but also of ‘values and attitudes very necessary in the academic field, such as exactitude, honesty, taste for a job well done, camaraderie, seriousness in teaching and research work, intellectual curiosity and a lifelong will to learn’.
He has also had a pioneering role for four decades in fields such as regional economics, the creation of the Economic and Social Research Institute at the University of Alcalá, and in performing empirical work within the field of input-output analysis and analysis of the European Union. The professor’s contributions in these fields ‘enjoy national and international recognition beyond any doubt, and his intellectual leadership is fully recognised’, reads the nomination, which also highlights his ‘interest that Spanish economists be valued and acknowledged in the international arena.’
Apart from the new honorary doctor’s academic and professional merits, the School underlines his ‘permanent availability to help and collaborate’, and his ‘accessibility and affection’: ‘we have always found in Juan Ramón an advisor permanently willing to contribute to the development and academic progress of the teaching staff who have been to ask for his help, opinion or advice,’ the text concludes.
Date of conferment: 7th of November 2017
Marysa Navarro Aranguren (Pamplona, 1934) is a specialist in feminist historiography and the history of women in Latin America, especially Eva Peron. She received a PhD in History from Columbia University (USA) and remained in the United States for her entire academic life, working as a university professor for several decades.
Little is known of Marysa Navarro’s career in her homeland, because, although born in the Navarrese capital, she has spent most of her life abroad. Her family went into exile during the Civil War due to the republican militancy of her father, Vicente Navarro Ruiz (Cárcar, Navarra, 1887-Montevideo, Uruguay, 1964), a schoolteacher who taught in Aoiz and Falces, and worked as a Primary School Inspector during the Second Republic.
After spending her childhood in France and adolescence in Uruguay, she went to Columbia University (New York) on a scholarship to study a Master's and PhD in History. She worked as a university professor for several decades, mainly at Dartmouth College in New England, which named her emeritus professor when she retired in 2010 after 42 years of teaching.
Author of a biography of "Evita"
Her research focused on the new feminist historiography and the history of women in Latin America, particularly in the twentieth century. This interest led her to study the figure of Eva Peron, on whom she published a biography, "Evita", in 1983 which has been reprinted several times since.
Marysa Navarro has been a visiting professor at universities in five countries (Spain, United States, Mexico, United Kingdom and Uruguay) and president of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA), which led her to take part in the 1987 Esquipulas II Peace Accords, which put an end to the armed conflicts in Central America, as an observer.
The honours she has received over her career include “Distinguished Woman Scholar” of the University of New Hampshire (USA), "Distinguished Visitor" of the City of Buenos Aires and the "Elizabeth Howland Hand-Otis Norton Pierce Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching" for the excellence of her teaching work at Dartmouth College.
Marysa Navarro has also been awarded numerous research grants. The last one she obtained was in 2009, a year before her retirement, and was granted by the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University, an institution which extended her stay as Resident Scholar.
She currently lives in the United States, although she spends long periods in Argentina and Uruguay. A holder of dual US/Spanish nationality, she has made frequent trips to Spain over recent years.
Date of conferment: 2016
Miguel de la Quadra Salcedo (1932-2016) was born in Madrid, but moved to Pamplona at the age of 4. While he studied to be an agronomist, he soon stood out as a superb athlete. He broke several Spanish records in the hammer, discus and javelin, and took part in the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome. One year later, his spirit for adventure took him to the Amazon rain forest, where he worked as an ethnobotanist for the Colombian government in the Museum of Anthropology in Bogota. On his return to Spain, the valuable collection of photographs he took in South America earned him a place as a reporter for Spanish National Television.
His first assignment as a journalist saw him cover the war in the Congo, where he was almost killed for filming the execution of 300 prisoners. Miraculously, he managed to escape unscathed and went on to develop a fruitful career as a television reporter which took him all around the world. His reports earned him numerous prizes, including the Pueblo Journalism Award for “Tres años en el Amazonas” (Three years in the Amazon), the National Television Award for “Managua y el terremoto” (Managua and the earthquake), the Cannes International TV Critics' Prize for “La muerte de Che Guevara” (The death of Che Guevara) and the Monte-Carlo International Television Award for "La larga marcha de los eritreos” (The Eritrean long march).
Architect of the Ruta Quetzal
In addition to his television reports, Miguel de la Quadra Salcedo is also remembered as the creator of what is now known as the Ruta Quetzal (Quetzal Route), an idea he came up with at the request of King Juan Carlos, who asked him to organise an event to commemorate the Fifth Centenary of the Discovery of America and strengthen ties with Spanish America. The programme was designed to consolidate the foundations of the Ibero-American Community of nations, consisting of all the Latin American nations, Brazil and Portugal included, among 15- and 16-year-olds. In the first phase, which ended in 1992, the expeditions, collectively referred to as "Aventura 92", met a key objective: to prepare the celebration of the Fifth Centenary of the Discovery of America.
Since the end of the centenary celebrations in 1992, the programme has been known as the Ruta Quetzal, run by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation through the Office of the Secretary of the State for International Cooperation and Ibero-America, and sponsored by the BBVA bank.
Over its thirty editions, some 9,000 European and American teenagers have had the chance to discover the human, geographical and historical sides of other cultures as different to their own as, for example, the ancient Mediterranean civilisations and Pre-Columbian cultures.
The Ruta Quetzal is not only a unique educational experience in which the youngsters taking part broaden their knowledge through the widest imaginable range of academic disciplines, but also a valuable instrument through which to raise awareness among the younger members of society regarding environmental protection and develop the spirit of international cooperation by encouraging them to observe the countries they visit closely in order to arrive at a new, more authentic set of values capable of transcending mere wealth and poverty.
The expedition has been a UNESCO cultural programme of “Universal Interest” since 1990 and has carried out different activities as such over its most recent editions. The governments of the countries which the expeditions tour have also declared it to be of “National Interest”.
The Ruta Quetzal is complemented by an academic study programme taught in coordination with the Complutense University of Madrid with the collaboration of the different universities based in the Ibero-American countries featured in each expedition.
Awards and recognition
The director of the Ruta Quetzal BBVA, Miguel de la Quadra Salcedo, received a great many awards for his work. In 2007, for example, the Autonomous University of Barcelona's School of Communication Sciences awarded him the Itaca Award in recognition of his outstanding career in the field of journalism, his invaluable educational work training young Latin Americans and his magnificent contribution to the transmission of knowledge of American and Spanish civilisations.
The Government of Navarre awarded him the Medal of the Cross of Carlos III the Noble of Navarre in 2009, publicly recognising his huge contribution to the advancement of Navarre and its image beyond its borders.
Finally, the Fundación Europea Educación y Libertad presented him with a prize in 2013 for the work that the programme had carried out over more than 30 years, the jury highlighting its work in favour of education, cultural exchange, understanding and union between the people of America and Spain.
Date of conferment: 11th of December 2014
Adolfo Eraso (1934-2021) graduated (Licenciatura) in Chemistry from Madrid’s Complutense University (1957), where he also earned a Diploma in General and Applied Hydrogeology (1967), a Diploma in Applied Geomorphology (1974) and a Diploma in Analog Measurement Systems (1974). In 1975, he received a PhD with Honours in Geology from the Complutense.
He was a member of the New York Academy of Sciences since 1994 and was the first Spanish member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences (2002). He obtained numerous awards and recognitions over his long professional career, including the Gold Medal of the Spanish Mountaineering Federation (1977), Honorary Member of the Cuban Speleological Society (1983), Member of the Spanish Olympic Committee (1984-1993), Honorary Member of the International Union of Speleology UIS (1986) and Medal of the University of Oviedo (1994). In Navarre, he was named “Estellés of the year” (1994) and awarded the Medal of the Navarrese Athenaeum (1995).
Glaciers and climate change
His main areas of research centre on oil drilling, applied geology and geotechnics, applied hydrogeology and the environment, physical-chemical processes in nature and glaciology, a subject in which he is acknowledged as a world authority thanks to his work on sub-glacial drainage and glacial regression, and their effects on climate change.
Since 2001, Adolfo Eraso was co-Director, together with Carmen Domínguez, of the GLACKMA Project, a programme that uses glaciers as natural sensors of trends in global warming. This work has earned him recognition by the Spanish Geographical Society, which awarded him its National Prize.
He is the author of more than 500 scientific articles in various national and foreign journals, more than 300 professional reports for different companies and some twenty books in collaboration with other authors. Doctor Eraso designed the Prediction Method for the Principal Directions of Drainage in Karst and other Anisotropic Environments (1985-1986), which has been applied on more than 100 occasions in different parts of Europe, Latin America, North Africa, the Middle East, polar regions and China. This method is currently being taught at the Polytechnic Institute of Toulouse (France) and the Polytechnic University of Madrid, to name just two academic institutions.
He was an expert mountaineer and speleologist, and, as a sportsman, was a member of the Spanish Olympic Committee. He was one of the first people to enter and study the Chasm of San Martín. He drew Karst maps of almost all of Navarre’s caves, combining his interest in sport and science.
Date of conferment: 6th of March 2014
Enric Trillas Ruiz is one of the first Europeans devoted to fuzzy logic. The advances in this field of research are particularly valuable for the development of artificial intelligence, since the theoretical models designed by scientists allow machines to handle imprecise information and make decisions in the same way that the human brain does. For example, these theoretical models make possible for an automatic washing machine to choose properly the program depending on the load, the dirt, and characteristics of garments.
He studied at the University of Barcelona, where he graduated in 1964 and received his Ph.D. in 1972 in sciences (Mathematics section). In 1974, he became, by opposition, a professor at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, institution where he held various academic positions as deputy director of the School of Architecture, Dean of the Faculty, Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs (1980 - 1982) and Vice Chancellor of University Extension (1982-1983).
In 1989 he moved to the Polytechnic University of Madrid, where in 1990 he took up the Chair of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, Faculty of Computer Science. There he worked in the Department of Artificial Intelligence until 2006.
He has been president of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC), between 1984 and 1988; general manager and vice president of the National Institute for Aerospace Technology (INTA), from 1989 to 1995; general secretary of the National Scientific and Technological Research and secretary of the Interministerial commission of science and technology, between 1995 and 1996; and president of the company Aerospace Engineering and Services (INSA).
Author of over 200 scientific publications and articles, he has directed 16 doctoral thesis and more than 20 dissertations and final projects. His books include: “Fuzzy sets ” (1980),“ introduction to fuzzy logic ” (1995), “first lessons of fuzzy logic ” (1998) and“ artificial intelligence: machines and people ” (1998), the latter of popular science.
Moreover, he has won the three most important prizes to be awarded in the field of fuzzy logic: the Pioneer Award of the European Society For Fuzzy Logic and Technologies (EUSFLAT), in 1999; the "Fellow” of International Fuzzy System Association (IFSA), in 1999; and “Fuzzy Systems Pioneer Award” of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society, in 2005.
Date of conferment: 8th of April 2011
Agustín González Acilu (1929-2023) is considered one of the foremost renovators of Spanish music of the 1960s. The arrival of the composers known as the Generation of ’51 –including the Navarrese composer- proved a decisive step in the integration of music composed in Spain into European compositional aesthetics.
González Acilu was born in Alsasua in 1929. He began to study music there under Luis Taberna, but soon moved to Pamplona, where the composer Fernando Remacha, then Director of the Pablo Sarasate Conservatory, recognised his creative potential and offered him his support. He later moved to Madrid to continue his academic education at the Royal Conservatory of Music. He was awarded the “Carmen del Río” scholarship by the San Fernando Academy of Fine Arts in 1960 and, at the same time, carried out research work commissioned by the Provincial Council of Navarre on 17th-century Navarrese composers.
Shortly afterwards, González Acilu entered the European musical scene, first in Paris as a Príncipe de Viana Institution scholar and, later, in Venice with an Italian government scholarship to take part in the “Vacanze Musicali” as a composer. He completed his musical education in Europe with composition courses in Rome, Venice and Darmstadt (Germany).
Composition, research and teaching
González Acilu’s work is without precedent in the field of linguistic research applied to the language of music. Back in 1966, he performed research work in the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) on the phonetic and phonological analysis of texts, part of some of his most outstanding work.
The Alsasua-born musician’s significant pedagogical work also left an important mark in the minds of several composers who he helped train, including, most especially, the members of the Pamplona-based Group of Composers “Iruñeko Taldea Musikagileak”.
Highlights from González Acilu’s long career in teaching include his time as teacher of Harmony at the Royal Conservatory of Music of Madrid, teaching the Composition Courses “20th-century techniques” held in Pamplona’s Pablo Sarasate Conservatory and his work as guest teacher in the University of Oviedo’s Jovellanos Department courses.
Over his long musical career, González Acilu has earned many prizes, including the National Music Prize on two occasions (1971 and 1998), the second in recognition of an entire life devoted to composition and the true significance of his work to music in the 20th century.
In 2009, he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Conservatory of Music of Madrid, a distinction granted to significant figures in the world of music. The Government of Navarre also awarded him the Príncipe de Viana Prize for Culture in the same year.
González Acilu was one of the six Navarrese composers which the Public University of Navarre commissioned to write music for the 25th anniversary of the death of Fernando Remacha. The compositions were premiered at a concert held last November in the Fernando Remacha Hall, a large assembly room in the El Sario building which has officially borne the name of the Tudela-born musician since June 2008 and is used by the UPNA for its most important academic ceremonies.
Date of conferment: 23rd of April 2010
Montxo Armendáriz Barrios was born in Olleta (Navarre). In the Fifties, his family moved to Pamplona, where Armendáriz studied electronics at the Salesian college. In the Seventies and beginning of the Eighties, he combined his work as Teacher of Electronics at Vocational Training Institutes with his love of filmmaking, leading to a number of short films. His first short film was “Barregarriaren dantza” (1979), a symbolic film clearly influenced by structuralism. This was followed by “Ikusmena” (1980), a film which revealed his concern for human manipulation, a constant theme throughout his work. Montxo Armendáriz’s first two short films earned significant awards, such as the Special Quality Prize of the Ministry of Culture and the First Prize for Basque Film at the Bilbao Festival.
In 1981, Institución Príncipe de Viana subsidised his project “Carboneros de Navarra” (Charcoal-burners of Navarre), a “brilliant exercise in documentary” on the last remaining practitioners of this hard trade. This documentary proved key to his career and served as inspiration for “Tasio” (1984), his first feature-length film. The film reached audiences not only due to the thoroughness and honesty of its contents, but also as a result of the extraordinary way in which it made use of cinematographic resources such as the ellipsis and off-camera action. The eager reaction of audiences was justified with a dozen national and international awards. “Tasio” was followed by “27 horas” (1986), a beautiful film based on the power of image and the cast’s facial expressions which also earned a number of prizes. In “Letters from Alou” (1990), which won the Golden Shell at the San Sebastian Film Festival, Armendáriz addressed the problem of racism head-on, taking that austere, demure style which he had already made his own to new extremes.
“Stories from the Kronen” (1994) marked a change of register by telling the story of a group of friends in Madrid. The film earned him his greatest box-office hit to date and the acknowledgement of critics and professionals alike, who awarded him his second Goya award as screenwriter.
In “Secrets of the Heart” (1997), Armendáriz returned to his roots with a beautiful, simple story on the transition from childhood to maturity, earning him the Blue Angel for Best European Film, among other awards. The film was also selected by the Spanish Film Academy as its candidate for the Oscars in the Best Foreign Language Film category. It was at this point that his career really started to gain recognition and Armendáriz received the 1998 Prince of Viana Award and the National Film Award.
His filmography continued with “Broken Silence” (2002), the documentary “Escenario móvil” (2003) and “Obaba” (2004), the latter based on Bernardo Atxaga’s novel “Obabakoak” and which once again saw him with options for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The Association of Entertainment Critics of New York honoured it with the Best Film Award and Pilar López de Ayala won the prize for Best Actress for her role in the production.
In 2008, Montxo Armendáriz’s career was recognised with a number of awards. The Society of Basque Studies/Eusko Ikaskuntza awarded him the Manuel Lekuona Prize, while the Foundation for Help against Drug Addiction, in collaboration with the Film Academy, presented him with the Prize for Film and Social Values “for his commitment, independence and originality, together with the variety of registers with which he portrays reality and reflects human and social situations and issues".
Date of conferment: 24th of April of 2009
Richard Serra (1938-2024) was born in San Francisco.. The sculptor has been the subject of large-scale individual exhibitions at the world’s foremost museums of contemporary art: Paris’ Centre Pompidou (1983), the Tate Gallery in London (1992) and the MoMA, New York (1986, 2007). Regularly invited to take part in the most relevant avant-garde events in the world (documenta of Kassel, Venice Biennale), his work is exhibited in approximately one hundred museums in Europe, the USA, New Zealand and Asia. He has received the most significant prizes and accolades awarded for sculpture, such as the Skowhegan Medal for Sculpture (1975) awarded by the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (USA), the Praemium Imperiale for Sculpture (1994) awarded by the Japan Art Association and the Gold Medal for Sculpture (2001) from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Akademie der Kunst (Germany), as well as having been named member of the "Orden Pour le Mérite für Wissenschaften und Künste" (2002) in Germany and Commandeur de L'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (2008) in France. He has received Honorary Doctorates from the California College of Arts and Crafts, the Nova Scotia College of Arts and Design, and Williams College (Massachusetts), among other distinctions awarded by a range of American and European institutions. Last December, he was named a member of the newly-created "Orden de las Artes y las Letras de España".
Son of a Majorcan, Richard Serra has always maintained a close relationship with Spain through a wide range of initiatives and projects, which got off the ground in the 80s with his participation in the exhibition "Correspondencias" (1982-83), shown in Madrid, Malaga and Bilbao. For this exhibition, he made two works in situ in Madrid and Bilbao: Step (1982) and Bilbao (1983). In 1982-84, he installed the permanent work La palmera in the Plaça de la Palmera in Barcelona.
In the same decade, the opening of the Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in 1986 saw the commissioning of the monumental installation Equal-Parallel: Guernica-Bengasi, which unfortunately disappeared, only to be voluntarily remade by the artist and reinstalled at Reina Sofia last year. In 1986, he also reconstructed one of his most emblematic works, Splashing, in situ, this time for the exhibition "Between geometry and gesture. North American sculpture, 1965-1975" (Madrid, Palacio de Velázquez), at which other works by the sculptor were also exhibited.
In 1992 and 1999, the Centro de Arte Reina Sofía and the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao ran individual exhibitions of Serra’s work, the former being a retrospective. For its opening in 1997, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao installed the permanent exhibit Snake, a commission which was joined in 2005 by The Matter of Time, a monumental assembly of eight sculptures -including Snake- considered "Serra's most complete rumination on the physicality of space and the nature of sculpture".
Special mention should be made here of the fact that from 1982 onwards, Richard Serra expressed on several occasions an admiration for the work of Jorge Oteiza.
Date of conferment: 13th of June of 2008
Born in Isaba (Navarre) in June 1950, Pedro Miguel Etxenike Landiribar graduated in Physical Sciences from the University of Navarra, and received a PhD from the University of Cambridge, a Doctorate in Physical Sciences from the Autonomous University of Barcelona and an ScD from Cambridge. He currently teaches at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), where he is Full Professor of Condensed-matter Physics.
His research work has mainly centred on Particle Physics and the Interaction of charges and radiation with matter. He has published some 300 papers in prestigious scientific journals and supervised more than 26 doctoral theses.
Pedro Miguel Etxenike promoted and headed the first mixed centre of the Higher Centre of Scientific Research and the University of the Basque Country, and currently chairs the Fundación Donostia International Physics Center, which has become a world reference point in its fields of research. He also played a leading role in the creation of the CIC Nanogune, which aims to house state-of-the-art nanotechnology laboratories and whose board of members he chairs.
The teaching and research work of this Isaba-born physicist has been acknowledged in the form of numerous prizes and honours, including the Prince of Asturias award for Scientific-Technological Research (1988), the Euskadi Research Prize (1996), the Prince of Viana cultural award (1997) and Gold Medals from the University of the Basque Country (1998), the city of San Sebastián (2000) and Navarre (2016).
Date of conferment: 27th of April 2007
José Rafael Moneo Vallés was born in Tudela (Navarre) in May 1937. He studied at the Higher Technical School of Architecture in Madrid (1961), where as a student he worked alongside Francisco Javier Sáenz de Oiza on several projects. He went on to work in the studio of Jorn Utzon, the architect of the Sydney Opera House, in Hellebaek (Denmark) in 1961 and 1962, and then, in 1963, pursued further studies in Italy with a scholarship from the Academy of Spain in Rome. On his return to Spain in 1965, he worked in Madrid and taught at the Higher Technical School of Architecture (1966-1970). In 1970, he became Full Professor of Elements of Composition at the Higher Technical School of Architecture in Barcelona, where he taught until 1980, when he took up a Full Professorship in Composition at the Madrid School of Architecture until 1985.
In 1976, he was invited to the United States to work at the New York Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies (1970-77). He also taught at the Cooper Union School of Architecture. In 1985, he was named Dean of the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. In addition to teaching, he has also taken part in numerous symposia and conferences throughout the world.
His most significant projects include the National Museum of Roman Art in Mérida (1980-86), the new branch of the Bank of Spain in Jaén (1982-88), Seville airport (1987-92), the Atocha station in Madrid (1985-92), the Palacio de Villahermosa, home to the Thyssen-Bornemisza collection (1989-92), the Fundación Pilar y Joan Miró in Palma de Mallorca (1987-92), the Davis Museum at Wellesley College, Massachusetts (1990-93), the Barcelona Auditorium (1990), the Museum of Modern Art and Architecture, Stockholm (1994), the Kursaal Auditorium and Culture Centre in San Sebastián (1995), and the Postdamer Platz Hotel and office buildings in Berlin (1993). His more recent works include the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the new Los Angeles cathedral, the General Archive of Navarre in Pamplona, the new Seville City Council building and the extension to Madrid's Prado Museum.
Rafael Moneo has been awarded a long list of prizes, such as the 1996 Pritzker Architecture Prize and the Spanish Government’s Gold Medal of Fine Arts. He has also won the Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize in Architecture, awarded by the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Schock Prize for Visual Arts, awarded by the Swedish Schock Foundation and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. In April 1994, he received a "Laurea ad Honorem" from the Venetian Faculty of Architecture. In 1996, he was awarded the Gold Medal of the French Academy of Architecture and in June the same year, the Gold Medal of the UIA (International Union of Architects). In 1998, he won the Feltrinelli Prize awarded by Rome’s Academia Nazionale dei Lincei and in 2003, the Royal Institute of British Architects’ Gold Medal. It should also be mentioned here that the Government of Navarre awarded him the 1993 Prince of Viana cultural award and in 2012 he received the Prince of Asturias Award.
Other distinctions he has earned include being named Permanent Academician of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, Madrid (1997) and being a full member of Jakiunde, the basque Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters.
Date of conferment: 22nd of April 2005
Professor Enrique Sánchez-Monge y Parellada (1921-2010) graduated in Agricultural Engineering in 1946 and, from a very early stage, was convinced that the Genetic Improvement of Crops could prove important in the fight against hunger in the world. This led him to join the so-called “green revolution” of the Sixties which resulted, above all, in the obtainment of wheat and rice varieties whose yields rose up to fivefold in some cases.
Enrique Sánchez-Monje started his research work through research fellowships (I947-1949) at experiment stations in Portugal and Sweden. He soon published the results of his research under the title of “Two types 01mis-division 01 the centromere” in the prestigious journal Nature. After earning a post as Scientific Co-worker of the Higher Scientific Research Council, he was named Head of the Cereal Enhancement Section at the Aula Dei Experiment Station (Zaragoza) and published his first book, “Glosario de términos de genética y Citogenética” (Glossary of Terms in Genetics and Cytogenetics).
He worked at Aula Dei until 1957, a period which saw the creation of Almunia and Albacete barley, the latter still of great importance in Spanish agriculture to this day, particularly in the Castile-La Mancha region, Gigantón rye, the oats Previsión and Cartuja, and the wheat varieties San Bruno and Toroma, the former for cool areas and the latter for Spain’s dry lands. In 1955, he published his first Treatise on Cytogenetics and earned the post of Researcher of the Higher Scientific Research Council. In the same year, he won the National Agricultural Research Prize for the publication of the book “Catálogo Genético de Trigos Españoles” (Genetic Catalogue of Spanish Wheat).
In 1957, he moved to Madrid as Researcher and Head of the Maize Improvement Centre of the National Agricultural Research Institute (INIA). His time at lNIA saw the creation of quality, biochemistry, cytogenetics and phytopathology laboratories and greenhouses in which new triticales and other cereal improvements were achieved. That same year he was named member of the Agricultural Research Committee of the Scientific and Technical Research Commission and Ordinary Commander of the Civil Order of Agricultural Merit, and received research funding from various sources, including the Rockefeller Foundation.
Three years later, he joined the Higher Technical School of Agricultural Engineers at the Polytechnic University of Madrid as Full Professor of General and Applied Genetics, where he remained until the academic year 1998-99 as Emeritus Professor. In 1963, he also earned a Full Professorship in Genetics in the Faculty of Science at the Complutense University of Madrid.
In the same decade, he published the book “Genética” (Genetics), the first university text book written on the subject in Spanish by a Spanish author, the book “Razas de Maíz en España” (Races of Maize in Spain), runner-up in the National Agricultural Research Awards, and “Diccionario de Genética” (Dictionary of Genetics). He has written numerous books, some of which have seen up to three editions, such as “Diccionario de Plantas Agrícolas” (Dictionary of Agricultural Plants) (1980), which earned him the 1980 National Agricultural Publications Prize. His more recent works include “Diccionario de Agronomía” (Dictionary of Agronomy) and “Flora Agrícola” (Agricultural Flora).
In 1968, he was named Corresponding member of the Academy of Science of Zaragoza, member of the Royal Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences of Madrid and Foreign Member of the French Academie d'Agriculture. He was also one of the founding members of the Spanish Society of Genetics in 1973, which he chaired from 1978 to 1985. From 1985, he served as President of the Natural Science Section of the Royal Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences, where his work involved scientific promotion and dissemination. In 1993, he was awarded the Leonardo Torres Quevedo Prize for Technical Research for his long, intense scientific career and contributions to plant improvement.
Date of conferment: 19th of April 2002
Joseph D. Novak, Professor Emeritus of the University of Cornell (New York, USA) developed what we know as concept mapping. His research has mainly centred on improving teaching/learning processes and the creation of knowledge. He is considered one of the most influential figures in education of the second half of the XX century.
Author of a prodigious bibliography of 25 books, six monographs and more than a hundred articles, Novak graduated in Science and Mathematics and has a doctorate in Science Education and Biology. He has won many prizes. Novak, who has pursued his academic career at the Universities of Minnesota, Kansas, Purdue, Harvard and Cornell, has maintained a close relationship with the researchers at the Public University of Navarre, leading to curricular and instructional material used by the Professors here and at other universities.
Date of conferment: 27th of April 2001
Ángel Jordán Goñi (Pamplona, 1930 - United States, 2017) graduated in Physical Sciences from the University of Zaragoza (1952). From 1952 to 1956, he researched servomechanisms and electronics at the Research Laboratory and Workshop of the Chief of Staff of the Navy. He then went to the United States and received a doctorate in Electrical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University (1959).
Associated with Carnegie Mellon University for the next 44 years, he has held a range of academic posts, including Dean of the Institute of Technology (1979-83), Head of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (1969-79) and Acting President of the Institute of Industrial Research (1983-85), the Software Engineering Institute and the College of Science (1987-88). From 1983 to 1991, he was University Provost.
His research and technological development work has significantly contributed to the advancement of our knowledge on subjects such as semiconductor physics, regulation and control, robotics, magnetism, microelectronics, computer engineering, image processing, instrumentation, education and technology transfer.
Ángel Jordán’s prestige reaches beyond the borders of the United States and he has sat on the boards of various institutions, such as the Universities of Harvard, Alabama, John Hopkins, Houston, California, Arizona, Drexel, Madrid Polytechnic… and served as President of the Association of Engineering of Pennsylvania.
Date of conferment: 21st of April 1997
Manuel Losada Villasante was born in Carmona (Seville) in 1929. He graduated in Pharmacy from the University of Madrid in 1952. In 1967, he earned the Full Professorship of Physiological Chemistry in the Faculty of Science at the University of Seville, later called Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, going on to work at the University of Münster, and the University of California, Berkeley, in the 50s.
In 1968, he founded the Institute of Plant Biochemistry and Photosynthesis, which he headed until 1986. In 2000, he was named Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Seville, a post he held until his retirement in 2005.
His main fields of research are photosynthesis, bio-energy, intermediary metabolism and its regulation, particularly regarding the bio-photoelectrolysis of water, the assimilation of nitrate and other primordial bio-elements and the energisation of phosphate, the bioconversion of solar energy and microalgal biotechnology. He has supervised more than fifty doctoral theses, created an advanced research school and published more than two hundred scientific papers and revisions on these subjects, as well as several books.
He has won the Prince of Asturias award for Scientific-Technological Research and has been named Favourite Son of Andalusia. He has also won the National Prize of the Higher Scientific Research Council (CSIC), the National Biological Research Prize, the I Maimónides Research Prize of the Autonomous Government of Andalusia and the Jaime I Research Prize from the Autonomous Government of Valencia. He has been awarded Honorary Doctorates from the University of Huelva and the Public University of Navarre, and the Gold Medal of the University of Seville.