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NEW PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY

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The Chancellor, Monsignor Fernando Ocáriz has appointed Professor María Iraburu Elizalde as the new President of the University of Navarra, replacing Alfonso Sánchez-Tabernero, who has served as president since September 2012. The inauguration is scheduled for January 2022. Professor Iraburu is the ninth academic to hold this position in the nearly seventy-year history of the University. 

María Iraburu (Pamplona, 1964) served as Vice President of Faculty Affairs since 2012. She has served on the Board of Management of the Schools of Medicine and Sciences and in 2005 she was appointed to the Executive Council of the University as Vice President of Students. During 2018-19 she completed the PADE program (Program for Senior Management) with IESE Business School of the University of Navarra. In 2020 she was appointed to the Board of Trustees of the Catholic University of America.

A graduate in Biology from the University of Navarra she defended her doctoral thesis in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in 1992 and between 1993 and 1996 she did a post-doctoral stay in the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York.  In 1996 she joined the University of Navarra.  Since then she has combined her research career and teaching with management duties. She has been the lead researcher of 7 research projects and has directed 8 doctoral theses.  Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, she has taught in the Schools of Medicine and Sciences.  Currently she teaches Structural and Functional Biochemistry and Biosynthesis of Macro molecules and their Regulation in the Degree of Biochemistry.

In her first words, Maria Iraburu paid tribute to the leadership of Alfonso Sánchez-Tabernero: "I think I speak for everyone in expressing our gratitude for his leadership in complicated times. His years as president, in which we have had no shortage of difficulties, laid a solid foundation on which to face the future with hope".

She also addressed the professors, students, staff and alumni, expressing her confidence "in the professional and human quality of all those who form part of the University. Everyone brings their talents, their vision, and their commitment to a job well done. We are all necessary to continue this adventure, for the new and the unexpected, so that the University of Navarra will continue to surprise us over the years".

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The Chancellor, Monsignor Fernando Ocáriz, has expressed his gratitude to Professor María Iraburu "her willingness to assume this new responsibility and face the new stage of the institution, full of challenges in research and teaching".  He also thanked professor Alfonso Sánchez-Tabernero "for his years dedicated to the service of the University as President, marked by his optimistic spirit and magnanimous disposition".

For his part, Alfonso Sánchez-Tabernero thanked everyone for their collaboration during his years as President. "I have felt the continuous support of those who form part of the University of Navarra. Thanks to this support, most of all from my colleagues in the Executive Council of the University, we have been able to promote major projects, face adversity and provide the service that society expects from the university”.  He also expressed his gratitude for the good relationship with the different governments, institutions and companies. “One of the reasons for greatest satisfaction is the growing number of friends that the University has," he added, while expressing his confidence "in the qualities of Professor Iraburu to lead the University in this new stage".

Professor Sánchez-Tabernero will continue with his teaching and research in the School of Communication of the University of Navarra.

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IN PICTURES

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  • 1993

    Thesis and postdoctoral stay

    The new president is a biologist and former student of the University. In 1992 she defended her doctoral thesis about the Structure and function of the chloroplast ATPase (ATPasa de cloroplastos) in the University of Navarra, directed by Professor María Jesús López Zabalza. Between 1993 and 1996 she did a postdoctoral stay in New York, in the Marion Bassin Liver Research Center of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. In the photo she is with her research team which was led by Professor Marcos Rojkind.

    Thesis and postdoctoral stay