Maria del Pilar
Aroca Tejedor

Mª Pilar Aroca Tejedor is a Full Professor of Anatomy and Human Embryology at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Murcia. Her research focuses on developmental neurobiology, with a particular interest in the mechanisms of neuronal migration during the embryonic development of the vertebrate brain. Throughout her career, she has also contributed to various fields, including the regulation of melanogenesis, cellular signaling mechanisms in Ras oncogene activation, and genetic factors involved in embryonic development. She has authored numerous publications in these areas, which are available on her Google Scholar profile. She earned a degree in Biology, specializing in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Autonomous University of Madrid, and completed her doctoral thesis at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Murcia. She then pursued a three-year postdoctoral fellowship at the National Cancer Institute (NIH, Maryland, USA). Upon returning to Spain, she was awarded a CSIC reintegration contract, allowing her to conduct research for four years at the Severo Ochoa Molecular Biology Center (CSIC, Madrid). Since 2000, she has been engaged in research at the Department of Human Anatomy and Psychobiology, University of Murcia, initially joining under a European research project and later securing a "Ramón y Cajal" research contract. In the field of teaching, she has lectured on Human Anatomy in six undergraduate programs and has taught Developmental Neurobiology in the Master’s Program in Neurosciences. Additionally, she has supervised numerous Undergraduate Final Projects (TFG), Master's Theses (TFM), and doctoral dissertations in the areas of Neurosciences and Biomedicine. Regarding academic leadership and research management, she has served as Secretary and Director of the Department of Human Anatomy and Psychobiology and has been a member of several doctoral committees. From February 2020 to March 2022, she held the position of Research Coordinator, and since April 2022, she has served as Coordinator for the Promotion of Research at the Vice-Rectorate for Research, University of Murcia. Since late 2024, she has been collaborating with the European University Alliance EUniWell, to which the University of Murcia belongs, as a member of the leadership team for Work Package 8, focused on responsible research, innovation, and entrepreneurship. As of March 2025, she has also joined a science communication project within this alliance, aimed at promoting scientific outreach to society.