Maria Iraburu Elizalde, a member of The Catholic University of America Board of Trustees, has been appointed president of the University of Navarra. Her inauguration will be held in January 2022.

Catholic University President John Garvey said, “This is a great honor and a recognition of Maria’s work throughout her distinguished career as a scholar and administrator. We offer our congratulations on this appointment.”

The University of Navarra is based in Pamplona, Spain, and has seven campuses, 26 schools and 12,356 students, including 8,705 undergraduates.

Iraburu has been vice president of faculty affairs at Navarra, which is her alma mater, since 2012. A biologist, she has been lead researcher of seven research projects and served as a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology in Navarra’s Schools of Medicine and Sciences.