On 4 December, the career of this researcher who carried out his undergraduate and postgraduate studies at the FaMAF and the IATE will be recognised.

Dr. Navarro will receive this recognition for his contribution to cosmological studies. His work is related to the formation and evolution of galaxies, mainly individual systems, such as the galaxy we inhabit, the Milky Way. They also address how dark matter is distributed. Although this matter would be much more abundant than the ordinary matter that makes up everything we interact with on a daily basis, its composition is one of the great challenges of contemporary astronomy and physics. The work of this scientist is among the most cited in the field.

When asked about his career, he says that after primary and secondary school in Santiago del Estero, his hometown, he began his studies in Córdoba in 1980. First, he studied engineering for about two years and then decided to change to a degree in astronomy. In the last years of this degree, when he had to start his final work, he chose to join the area of Extragalactic Astronomy, directed, at that time, by Dr José Luis Sersic, who had already created the Research Programme in Theoretical and Experimental Astronomy, the predecessor of the current IATE. From those early stages of his career, the work he shared with Sersic, Diego García Lambas and Mirta Mosconi stands out. After finishing his degree, he began his doctorate with a CONICET scholarship, also at IATE, and during this stage, he began his visits abroad. After finishing his PhD at UNC, he did research in the USA and England, and, since 1998, he has been working at the University of Victoria, Canada. 

Although Julio Navarro has received several awards, he emphasises that in addition to the academic honour of receiving an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Cordoba, for him it is the culmination of a long process that began in Argentina and continued outside the country. 

"When I came to study in Córdoba, I thought I wouldn't even finish my degree, but then you get used to it and learn," says the researcher, adding: "My career has given me much more satisfaction than I could ever have imagined. The only thing I have done all my life is learn, learn and learn. And, on top of that, I get recognition. 

Finally, he recognises that this distinction is a demonstration that this distance of almost 35 years since he left the country has not been complete: "Those who proposed me for the Honorary Doctorate are people I knew when I was studying, and I know that these people, although I have left, have never left my personal sphere. We are still friends and academic brothers, with many different things, but with many things in common. So this is a way of celebrating that bond and it's very meaningful to me." 

Mario Abadi, professor at UNC, researcher at IATE and one of those who promoted the awarding of this distinction, points out that "Julio is a scientist who possesses a mixture of intuition and scientific rigour that has served as an example to several researchers and fellows who currently belong, and others who have belonged, to IATE. At the same time, despite being based abroad for many years, he has maintained an intense exchange with researchers and fellows of the Institute. The title of Doctor Honoris Causa is, without a doubt, a well-deserved recognition both of his outstanding academic career and of the fruitful exchange he has maintained for more than two decades".