Mª Ángeles Querol Fernández (Badajoz, 1948) is Full Professor of Prehistory at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) since 1986.
After finishing her PhD at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, she got into the Museum Curators Corps of the Spanish State. Professor Querol has been visiting researcher in the University of Burdeos (France), the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israel) and the Museum of Belem (Portugal). Afterwards, she started her career as lecturer in the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, where she has taught for the last 45 years. Professor Querol has diversified her teaching and research between three areas: human origins, cultural heritage management-particularly archaeological heritage- and feminist archaeology.
She set up the ASOCIACIÓN PROFESIONAL DE ARQUEÓLOGOS DE ESPAÑA (Professional Association of Archaeologists of Spain) in 1983, which started to work one year later. Between 1985 and 1988 she was General Deputy Director of Archaeology in the Spanish Ministry of Culture at a crucial moment: the responsibilities for Cultural Heritage Management were transferred to the regional governments (called Autonomous communities in Spain). On its part, the Central Government began a new era in its history that finally consolidated into the Instituto de Patrimonio Cultural de España (Institute of Cultural Heritage of Spain).
Back to the university, Professor Querol taught modules on management and protection of cultural and archaeological heritage. She also fostered the introduction of a new degree course of Archaeology at the Spanish university system. This degree commenced at the UCM in 2010. In 2013 she appointed as coordinator by the UCM of the Cluster of Cultural Heritage in the Campus of International Excellence of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. From this Cluster she fostered the introduction of a postgraduate course “El Patrimonio Cultural en el siglo XXI: gestión e investigación” (Cultural Heritage in the 21st century: management and research). Professor Querol has been a prolific writer of both informative and academic papers and books on cultural and archaeological heritage. Among her many recognitions, she has been awarded by the European Association of Archaeologists with the European Archaeological Prize (2015) and, more recently, with the Golden Medal of Merit (2019) awarded by the Spanish Central Administration.