Fernando Cervero graduated in Medicine from Madrid University in 1972 and obtained a PhD in Neuroscience in 1975. He did postdoctoral training at Edinburgh University and held academic posts at Edinburgh and Bristol Universities between 1975 and 1994. From 1994 to 2002 he was Professor and Chair of Physiology at Alcala University (Madrid) and in 2002 joined McGill University (Montreal) as Director of the Alan Edwards Centre for Research on Pain, a centre of excellence in pain research and management
His research interests have always been in the physiology of pain, with a special interest on the mechanisms of visceral pain and on the generation of hyperalgesic states.
He is a member of the Academia Europaea and former Editor-in-Chief of the European Journal of Pain and was President of the International Association for the Study of Pain (2012-14).