Founder and President of Fundación Alborada
15 October 2026, at The Urso Hotel, Madrid
What if the environment around us is affecting our health in ways we have yet to fully understand?
The air inside our homes. The cosmetics we put on our skin. The containers in which we store our food. Cleaning products. Furniture. Plastics. Mold. Pesticides. Electromagnetic exposure. What do we actually know about their impact on our bodies?
For our last LeadHers breakfast, we turned to one of the foremost experts on one of today’s most urgent – and least understood – health topics: Dr. Pilar Muñoz-Calero, Founder & President of Fundación Alborada and Co-Director of the Chair of Pathology & Environment at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. She is one of a small number of physicians in Europe registered to practice Environmental Medicine in both Spain and the United Kingdom (General Medical Council), a member of the American Academy of Environmental Medicine and the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society, and a full academic member of the Ilustre Academia de Ciencias de la Salud Ramón y Cajal.
Originally trained in pediatrics, neonatology and stomatology, Dr. Muñoz-Calero’s own path took an unexpected turn in her forties, when she herself developed Multiple Chemical Sensitivity – a condition almost unknown in Spain at the time. Searching for answers took her to the Environmental Health Center in Dallas, where she trained under Dr. William Rea, one of the founding figures of Environmental Medicine, before continuing her education at the Breakspear Medical Group in the UK, Europe’s leading reference center in the field. What began as a personal search became a professional mission: she went on to build Fundación Alborada into a reference organization for environmental health in Spain, establish the UCM’s Chair of Pathology & Environment – the only one of its kind in the country – and create an International Congress that has convened physicians and scientists from around the world for nearly two decades. Recently, Dr. Muñoz‑Calero inaugurated Clínica Luunt, Spain’s first environmental medicine clinic, a pioneering project built upon the experience and legacy of the Alborada Foundation.
Over breakfast, she guided us through the questions at the heart of her work: Are there invisible environmental factors influencing our health? What does science tell us about endocrine disruptors and everyday chemical exposures? Why are certain chronic conditions becoming increasingly prominent? What should women in particular know about environment, hormones and health? And what can we realistically change in our everyday lives – without becoming afraid of everything around us?
This was not simply a conversation about medicine. It was a conversation about how we live, led by one of the field’s most credentialed and internationally connected voices.