Francisco José Ynduráin

He was a member of the Royal Spanish Physical Society, Royal Academy of Exact Physical and Natural Sciences of Spain, where he was president of the Physics and Chemistry section from 2002 to 2006. He was also member of the American Physical Society, founding member of the European Physical Society and member of the European Academy of Sciences energy committee. In 2004 he was nominated general secretary of the Instituto de España.

Yndurain also wrote books on science for a broader audience. In 1997 he published a book discussing UFOs theories, Quién anda ahí?, which won the Golondriz award for smart humor in 1998. In 2002 he published a book about the structure of matter entitled Electrones, neutrinos y quarks. Finally, in 2004 he published a book about science, scientists and history entitled Los desafíos de la ciencia.

In 1983, Yndurain published a widely used book advanced textbook on quantum field theory for graduate students, Quantum Chromodynamics: An Introduction to the Theory of Quarks and Gluons. The book has been translated into Russian as Kvantovaia Khromodinamika. The book was expanded twice: once in 1996 as Relativistic Quantum Mechanics and Introduction to Field Theory, and again in 1999 as The Theory of Quark and Gluon Interactions.

In 1970 he took the professor position in Madrid (at the Complutense University and immediately after at the Autonomous University of Madrid) where he founded and headed the Particle Physics Research group. He was Director of the Department of Theoretical Physics (1974–1977 and 1981–1984), Dean of the Faculty of Science (1975) and Deputy President (1978–1981) of the Autonomous University of Madrid.

Ynduráin was an associate professor at the University of Zaragoza until 1966. He was a researcher at New York University from 1966 to 1968, at which point he moved to Geneva to become a research fellow at CERN until 1970. He was a Researcher at CERN from then on, as a Senior Scientific Associate (1976–1992), and as a member of the Scientific Policy committee (1988–1994).

Yndurain was born in Benavente (Zamora) and grew up in Saragossa. After graduating from Saragossa's San Agustin High school, he received his M.S. degree in mathematics in 1962 and in 1964 his PhD in physics. He obtained both degrees from the University of Zaragoza (Spain).

Francisco José Ynduráin Muñoz (23 December 1940 – 6 June 2008) was a Spanish theoretical physicist. He founded the particle physics research group that became the Department of Theoretical Physics at the Autonomous University of Madrid, where he was a Professor. He was described by his colleagues as "a scientist that always searched for excellence in research".