Universidad CEU Cardenal Herrera - Doctors Honoris Causa

Doctors Honoris Causa

• Valentin Fuster is a Spanish cardiologist – the only cardiologist to receive the two highest gold medal awards and all four major research awards from the world's four major cardiovascular organizations: The Distinguished Researcher Award (Interamerican Society of Cardiology, 2005 and 2009), Andreas Gruntzig Scientific Award and Gold Medal Award (European Society of Cardiology, 1992-2007 respectively), Gold Medal Award and Distinguished Scientist (American Heart Association, 2001 and 2003 respectively), and the Distinguished Scientist Award (American College of Cardiology, 1993). Fuster made news in 2006 when he managed a patient who underwent successful combined heart and lung transplant, which New York Magazine named one of the year’s "11 medical marvels". In November 2012, Dr. Fuster received the highest honor given by the American Heart Association, the Research Achievement Award. Dr. Fuster has ranked among the Top Doctors in the US for the past 13 years and is considered in the top 1% of physicians in the United States by Castle-Connolly.

• Jose Maria Aznar (; born 25 February 1953) served as the Prime Minister of Spain from 1996 to 2004. He is on the board of directors of News Corporation and is also a member of the Club de Madrid.

• Antonio Cañizares Llovera (born 15 October 1945) is a Spanish Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church who is the current Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, having previously served as Archbishop of Toledo and Primate of Spain from 2002 to 2008. Pope Benedict XVI created him Cardinal-Priest of San Pancrazio in the consistory of 24 March 2006. The Spanish primate was awarded a doctorate honoris causa from the Universidad CEU Cardenal Herrera on that same date. He will be eligible to participate in any future papal conclaves until he reaches the age of eighty on 10 October 2025

• Nora Volkow (b. 27 March 1956 Mexico) is director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). She is the great-granddaughter of Russian revolutionary leader and Head of the Fourth International, Leon Trotsky. She attended the Modern American School, then earned a medical degree from National University of Mexico before going to New York University for psychiatric residency. She chose a career in brain research after reading an article on the use of positron emission tomography in studying brain function. She did research at Brookhaven National Laboratory before becoming director of NIDA in 2003.

• Joaquín Navarro-Valls, M.D. (born November 16, 1936, Cartagena, Spain), studied medicine at the Universities of Granada and Barcelona, as well as journalism at the Faculty of Sciences of Communication at the University of Navarra in Pamplona, Spain. He also took post-graduate studies at Harvard University in the United States. He graduated summa cum laude in Medicine and Surgery in 1961 and took courses for a doctorate in Psychiatry in “Trastornos psiquiátricos en los traumas craneales”. In addition, he taught at the Faculty of Medicine. In 1968, received a degree in journalism and in the science of communication in 1980. In 1988, he received the Ischia International Journalism Award. He was the Director of the Holy See Press Office (or Vatican Press Office), taking the post in 1984. His role as the press liaison between the Vatican and the world press corps gave him perhaps the highest visibility of any one person in the Vatican during the long reign of Pope John Paul II, with the exception of the Pope himself. Navarro-Valls, a non-clerical journalist, resigned his post July 11, 2006. Pope Benedict XVI has appointed the Reverend Father Federico Lombardi, S.J., to take his place. On January 20, 2007, it was announced that he will be president of the board of advisers of the Biomedical University of Rome. In 2007, he was awarded the Commander's Cross with Star Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland by the President of Poland.

• Bishop Carlos Belo SDB, GCL (born 3 February 1948) is an East Timorese Roman Catholic bishop. Along with José Ramos-Horta, he received the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize for work "towards a just and peaceful solution to the conflict in East Timor". Bishop Belo's labours on behalf of the East Timorese and in pursuit of peace and reconciliation were internationally recognised when, along with José Ramos-Horta, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in December 1996. Bishop Belo capitalised upon this honour through meetings with Bill Clinton of the United States and Nelson Mandela of South Africa. In 1995, he also won the John Humphrey Freedom Award from the Canadian human rights group Rights & Democracy. In July 2004, Bishop Belo took up missionary work in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique and this year was awarded a Honorary Doctorate from CEU Cardinal Herrera University

• Stanley G. Payne (born September 9, 1934 in Denton, Texas) is a historian of modern Spain and European Fascism at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He retired from full time teaching in 2004 and is currently Professor Emeritus at its Department of History. Payne uses a lengthy itemized list of characteristics to identify fascism, including the creation of an authoritarian state; a regulated, state-integrated economic sector; fascist symbolism; anti-liberalism; anti-communism, and anti-conservatism. He sees elimination of the autonomy or, in some cases, complete existence of large-scale capitalism as the common aim of all fascist movements.

• Andrea Riccardi (born 1950 in Rome) is the founder of the Community of Sant'Egidio and Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Rome III in Rome, Italy. Since November 16, 2011, he has served as Minister for International Cooperation without portfolio in the Monti Cabinet. Riccardi is also a member of the Fondation Chirac's honour committee, ever since the foundation was launched in 2008 by former French president Jacques Chirac in order to promote world peace. He also participated as jury member in 2009 for the Prize for Conflict Prevention awarded every year by this foundation.

• Stanley B. Prusiner (born May 28, 1942) is an American neurologist and biochemist. Currently the director of the Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Prusiner received a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania and later received his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Prusiner then completed an internship in medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. Later Prusiner moved to the National Institutes of Health, where he studied glutaminases in E. coli in the laboratory of Earl Stadtman. He received the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research in 1994 and the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1997 for his work in proposing an explanation for the cause of bovine spongiform encephalopathy ("mad cow disease") and its human equivalent, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. In this work, he coined the term prion, which comes from the words "proteinaceous" and "infectious," to refer to a previously undescribed form of infection due to protein misfolding. Prusiner was elected to the National Academy of Science in 1992 and to its governing council in 2007. He is also an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1993), the Royal Society (1996), the American Philosophical Society (1998), the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (2003), and the Institute of Medicine.