Joaquin Navarro Valls

Joaquín Navarro-Valls
Navarro-Valls in 2014
Born	(1936-11-16)November 16, 1936 Cartagena, Spain
Died	July 5, 2017(2017-07-05) (aged 80) Rome, Italy
Alma mater	Deutsche Schule University of Granada University of Barcelona University of Navarra
Occupation	Journalist, physician, academic

Joaquín Navarro-Valls, M.D. (November 16, 1936 – July 5, 2017) was a Spanish journalist, physician and academic who served as the Director of the Holy See Press Office from 1984 to 2006. His role as the press liaison between the Vatican and the world press corps gave him perhaps the highest visibility of any one person in the Vatican during the long reign of Pope John Paul II, with the exception of the Pope himself. He resigned his post July 11, 2006 and was replaced by Father Federico Lombardi. On January 20, 2007, he was named president of the board of advisers of the Biomedical University of Rome, an office he occupied until his death.

Navarro-Valls studied at the Deutsche Schule in Cartagena, and then studied medicine at the Universities of Granada and Barcelona, as well as journalism at the Faculty of Sciences of Communication at the University of Navarra in Pamplona, Spain. He also took post-graduate studies at Harvard University in the United States. He graduated summa cum laude in Medicine and Surgery in 1961 and took courses for a doctorate in Psychiatry in "Psychiatric disorders in cranial traumas" (Trastornos psiquiátricos en los traumas craneales). In addition, he taught at the Faculty of Medicine.

In 1968, received a degree in journalism and in the science of communication in 1980.