My career owns more to a series of serendipituous episodes than to my intellectual abilities. I was born in Madrid, where I studied Medicine, Philosophy and Arts, and Law, obtaining a PhD degree in Medicine and Surgery (Neuroscience’s) and in Philosophy (Education). I also have a Master in High Studies on Defense, and three diplomas on High Studies of National Defense, European Security and Defense, and Cybersecurity.
I have worked in:
- Comparative Education (Schola Europea –European Schools- of the European Union).
- Neuropsychology (Free University of Berlin, Stanford University and Paris-5 René Descartes)
- Psychobiology (Universities of Ruhr in Bochum, Autónoma Madrid, Seville and Complutense Madrid as well as in the Laboratory of Ethology of the Centre Ramón y Cajal in Madrid and in the Free University of Berlin)
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National and International Defense (Spanish military university CESEDEN) and the probably two more important American think-tanks -left and right leaned, respectively: International Security (Research Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, and at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford University).
I was Humboldt & Fullbright Fellow, in Ruhr Universität and Stanford, respectively.
I’ve been Director of the Gabinete de Estudios in the Universidad Autónoma Madrid and of the Departments of Psychobiology in the Universities of Seville and Complutense Madrid. I also worked at the UCM Institute for Biofunctional Studies, being Head of the Complutense Research Group on Sociopsychobiology of Aggression. I have also been appointed Adviser of the Valencian International Universitat for the studies of Degree in Criminology. At the present, I am Full Professor at the Nebrija University, in Madrid, and Head of its Center for Conflict Studies.
My main scientific field of interest has been research on aggression from an interdisciplinary prospective. He has studied it in a variety of animal species, from birds to primates, and in many different cultures within the human species (Europe, China, Iran, Japan, Southern Africa, Southern America, and Canada). With this purpose, I spent time in several institutions all over the world: as Visiting Professor in the International Faculty Member of the UNESCO-Hebrew University of Jerusalem, at the Kobenhavns Universitetat, at the Université Paris-5 (France), at the Universidad Francisco Marroquín (Guatemala) and at the Akademia Pedagogiki Specjalnej im. Marii Grzegorzewskiej and at the Wyższa Szkoła Bezpieczeństwa Publicznego i Indywidualnego “APEIRON” w Krakowie(Poland); and as Visiting Researcher in Swansea University College (Wales), Sydney University (Australia), Hiroshima (Japan), Université Laval (Quebec), René Descartes (France), Freie Universität Berlin (Germany), as well as in the American universities of Harvard and Stanford, and in the East-West Center of Hawaii.
I have more than 500 scientific publications, in more than ten languages, including about 50 books, such as: La Escuela Europea; Ultraestructura de las arteriolas cerebrates; Einführung in die Anthropobiologie; La Función Cortical;Vida, Ambiente y Biología; Biología y Personalidad; Fundamentos biológicos de la Educación: La Vida; Research on Aggression; Violence. Some Alternatives; La Agresión: un enfoque psicobiológico; Human Aggression: A multiphaceted phenomenon; De la agresión a la guerra nuclear (with Rañada); Cerebro, Mente y Holograma and Cerebro y Conciencia (both with Pribram); Neuropsiquiatría de la Conducta Violenta (with Peñaloza); Aggression: Functions and Causes and Cross-disciplinary Studies on Aggression (both with Brain); Essays on Violence (with Hinde & Groebel); Aggression in Children (with Pulkkinen); Cross-cultural Approaches to Aggression and Reconciliation (with Richardson); Interdisciplinary Analyses of Terrorism (with Antonius, Brown, Walters, & Sinclair); Radicalization, Terrorism, and Conflict (with Walters & Monaghan); Conflict, Violence, Terrorism and their Prevention (with Morrison & Kendall); Security in Infrastructures (with Fernández-Rodríguez); Conflict, Violence, Terrorism and their Prevention (con Morrison & Kendall); Security in Infrastructures (con Fernández-Rodríguez); Retos actuales de la Seguridad (con Fernández-Rodríguez y Payá); Cyberspace: Risks and Benefits for Society, Security and Development (con García Segura); Cross-Cultural Dialogue as a Conflict Management Strategy (con Abad-Quintanal); and Security and Defence in Europe (con Biziewski), Security and Defence in Europe, and A Shift in the Security Paradigm – Global Challenges: is Europe ready to meet them? (both with Biziewski), and Security in the Global Commons and Beyond (with Bauzá), among others.
I have been guest Editor of two issues of the International Journal of Neuroscience as well as of Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression, the International Journal of Organisational Transformation and Social Change, the Open Psychology Journal, and the Open Criminology Journal. He is also -or has been- member of the Editorial Council of the International Journal on World Peace, the International Journal of Comparative Psychology, Behavioral Sciences on Terrorism & Political Aggression, Terrorism: An Electronic Journal and Knowledge Base, Partnership for Peace: An Academic Inter-Disciplinary Review, Open Criminology Journal, International Journal of Evolutionary Psychology, Austin Anthropology, Polish Psychological Forum, Security Dimensions. International & National Studies, Security, Economy & Law, and of Kultura Bezpieczeństwa. Nauka – Praktyka – Refleksje.
While on sabbatical leaves, I have given a series of lectures and addresses on aggression, violence and terrorism throughout
- Bulgaria (Burgas)
- Canada (Quebec, Halifax)
- Colombia (Bogotá, Cartagena de Indias, Barrancabermeja)
- Croatia (Dubrovnik, Zagreb)
- Finland (Turku, Lahti, Vasa)
- Germany (Bonn, Munich, Berlin, Landau)
- Hungary (Budapest, Leányfalu, Pecs, Szombathely)
- Iran (Tehran, Yazd), Israel (Jerusalem, Tel Aviv),
- Italy (Rome, Milan, Erice)
- Japan (Hiroshima, Nagasaki)
- Kazakstan (Almaty, Astana)
- Korea (Seoul)
- Mexico (Mexico City, Queretaro, Toluca)
- Poland (Warsaw, Danzig, Zielona Góra)
- South Africa (Pretoria, Stellenbosch)
- Turkey (Ankara, Bodrum, Istanbul)
- UK (Oxford, Cambridge, Belfast),
- USA (Cambridge, MASS; Storrs, CT; Irvine, San Francisco and Stanford, CA; Honolulu, Hi)
… among other places.
I am a member of the ISRA (International Society for Research on Aggression), having been an Official of its Council on two occasions as well as a member of its Nominations, Mass Media and United Nations Committees as a NGO counsellor. I also belong to other international scientific societies, such as Society of Neurosciences, International Society of Comparative Psychology, American Association of Psychology, Psychonomic Society, New York Academy of Sciences, Society for Terrorism Research, and chair of the Spanish National Pugwash Group (Pugwash was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace 1995). I am also in the Board of Advisors of the Society for Terrorism Research. At present I act as Chair of CICA International (International Conferences on Conflict and Aggression), which has organized more than fifty scientific meetings in different countries in Europe, Asia, America and Africa.
Ambassador for Peace, mediator in the Middle East Peace Initiative (1996), Jerusalem & RamalaI’ve been nominated for a honorary doctoral degree by the University of San Francisco
Elected Fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science (2013) and of the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung (1977, 2010, 2011, 2014), Dr. Martínez Molina Award to the best student of Anatomy of Madrid (1960), being also awarded the Europe Prize (1971), Murcia Academy of Medicine and Surgery Prize (1976)
Royal Spanish Academy of Medicine and Surgery Prize (1981), as well as a Professional Award on international conflicts by the East-West Center established by the United States Congress (1985).
In 1996, I was elected Co-Chair of the UNESCO Comittee on Science for Peace. At national level,
I´member of the Royal Murcia Academy of Medicine and Surgery, of the Spanish Society of Writer and Artist Physicians, of the Society of History of Medicine, and of the Spanish Society of Neurosciencies, as well as of the Board of Advisors of the Reina Sofía Centro for the Study of Violence.
In 2020, Nebrija University has awarded me with the title of Honorary Professor.
Member of the Advisory Board of the Vienna International Institute for Middle East Studies (VIIMES).
Among other distinctions, I’ve been honoured with the Medal of The Little Angels of Korea; Plaque of Honour of the Turkish General Staff, presented by the Commander of the Turkish Armed Forces; appointment by the Premier of Nova Scotia, in Canadá, as Member of the ancient L’Ordre du’Bon Temps, founded in 1606; and by the Town Council of the Argentinian city of San Carlos de Bariloche as Honour Guest. Finally, the Universal Peace Federation also presented me as an Ambassador for Peace.
As a summary, I’ve dedicated myself for more than four decades to crafting solutions in response to the new changes developed and molded the world, in an unending effort to achieve peace through rules and institutions. More specifically, from the very beginning, I tried to enhance knowledge about the causes and control of aggressive behavior, first, and conflict resolution later.
Sumarising, I’ve been a scientist 1) truly interdisciplinary in academic formation and interests belonging to multiple international and interdisciplinary societies, and helping found some of them, like STR and CICA; and 2) international in reach, because of my own background which included quite a few years living in practically all over the planet, doing research and teaching at universities in Europe, America and Australia.