Arcadi Navarro

Arcadi Navarro is a Full Professor (currently on leave) and ICREA Research Professor (currently on leave) at Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain, within the Department of Experimental and Health Sciences. Since January 2016, he has suspended all academic responsibilities to serve as Secretary of State for Universities and Research in the Catalan Government, overseeing research policy for Catalonia's twelve universities and premier research centers.

His academic foundation includes undergraduate and graduate studies at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (PhD in Biology started 1992), followed by postdoctoral research at the University of Edinburgh (1999-2002). He joined UPF in 2002 via the Ramón y Cajal Programme, progressing to ICREA Research Professor (2006) and Full Professor (2010).

Navarro's research centers on evolutionary genomics, with expertise spanning genome evolution, computational genomics, human genome diversity, genomic architecture of complex traits, and evolutionary medicine. His work integrates computational biology with evolutionary theory to address biomedical questions, particularly in human genetic diversity and disease mechanisms.

He has mentored postdoctoral and doctoral students while leading the Evolutionary Biology Unit since 2002, directing the Department of Experimental and Health Sciences (2013-2015), and heading the Population Genomics Node of the Spanish National Institute for Bioinformatics. His infrastructure contributions include co-managing the European Genome-phenome Archive (EGA) at the CRG in collaboration with the EBI.