Belén Merck Navarro

Belén Merck Navarro serves as Full Professor and Director of the Department of Medicine and Surgery at CEU Cardenal Herrera University's Faculty of Health Sciences in Valencia, Spain, a position she has held since 2020. She also coordinates the Medicine Degree program and participates in the TFG/TFM Evaluation Tribunal and Internal Monitoring Commission for the Faculty of Health Sciences, demonstrating deep institutional integration since joining the university in 2011.

Her academic foundation includes a Medicine and Surgery degree from the Autonomous University of Madrid, residency in general and digestive system surgery at Hospital de Navarra, and specialized training in breast surgery at Jiménez Díaz Foundation. She completed a Master's in Mastology through the Foundation for Mastological Studies and defended her doctoral thesis on "Assessment of the implementation of breast units in the quality of care in the multidisciplinary treatment of breast cancer" at General University Hospital of Elche.

Dr. Merck Navarro's research centers on breast cancer surgical innovation, with expertise in sentinel lymph node biopsy, breast reconstruction, and multidisciplinary treatment protocols. Her clinical work directly informed the European RESTORE-2 multicenter trial involving adipose tissue progenitor cells, while her humanitarian focus drives a medical-surgical volunteer project in the Philippines operating with students and faculty.

She actively contributes to professional communities as a member of the Breast Pathology Section and Humanitarian Collaboration Group of the Spanish Association of Surgeons, and serves on the Social Media Committee for the Annals of Surgical Oncology journal through the Society of Surgical Oncology.