Date of appointment: 27 september 2011.
By proposal of: Faculty of Language Studies, Translation and Communication.
Date of investiture: 3 february 2012.
Sponsor: Dr. Antonio Ariño Villarroya and Dr.Manuela Poveda Rosa.
María Ángeles Durán Heras, the first woman that gor a chair of Sociology in Spain, is a prominent representative of the social researchers generation that has been incorporated to the academic life in the sixties. The new honoris causa doctor of the University of Valencia is graduated in Political and Economic Sciences by the University of Madrid. She took studies simultaneously different years in the Faculty of Law. By getting the cum laude doctorate, she continued specialised studies in the Institute for Social Research (University of Michigan), granted by the Fulbright Commission.
She has done researching stays in the universities of Cambridge, Rio de Janeiro (PUC), Washington (Seattle) and in the European Institute of Florence. She was founder of the Woman's Studies University Institute in the Autonomous University of Madrid. She has been president of the Sociology Spanish Federation and member of the International Sociological Association's executive committee.
Currently, she is research professor in the Superior Council of Scientific Researchs (Human and Social Science Center).
Her intelectual contributions have deserved numerous awards, among other the National Award for Research in Juridical, Social and Economic Sciences Pascual Madoz; the Work Gold Medal; the Fernando de los Ríos of Town Planning Award; the Protagonistas Award (media); the Peace Messengers Award; or the Gold Medal of Extremadura. Author of an extense written work, some of her works must be stressed: ‘El trabajo de la mujer’, ‘De puertas adentro’, ‘Mujeres y hombres en la Teoría Sociológica’, ‘La ciudad compartida’, ‘Los costes invisibles de la enfermedad’...
Her auobiographical book ‘Diario de batalla’ (2003) was distinguished by the Foundation for the Public Education and Continuing Ongologic Formation (FEFOC) for being considered a valued contribution to the comprehension of cancer's personal and social consequences.
