Dr. Guadalupe López-Íñiguez is a Spanish researcher, cellist, and educator. She holds a permanent position as University Researcher in Instrumental Pedagogy and Performance Science at the Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki, Finland, where she is also a Docent (Associate Professor). She serves as an Honorary Senior Fellow at the University of Melbourne. Guadalupe currently leads the international project “The Politics of Care in the Professional Education of Children Gifted for Music” (2022–2027), funded by the Research Council of Finland, exploring how caring educational ecosystems can support gifted children in music to develop into well-rounded, self-directed musicians while pursuing excellence and professionalism.

Dr. López-Íñiguez is a practice-based researcher whose interdisciplinary work spans learning psychology, including pedagogy and musicians’ development (career trajectories, giftedness, identity, motivation, emotion, and wellbeing), and philosophical and sociological perspectives on music education (care ethics, sustainability, and value systems). Her methodologically innovative work is grounded both epistemically and systemically, integrating evidence-informed learning, reflective practice, and the embodied experience of music-making with conceptual and theoretical approaches to sustainable music education and performance ecosystems.

Since 2009, she has led or collaborated in numerous international research projects and received multiple awards. She has authored over 60 peer-reviewed publications and is widely recognized as a keynote speaker, peer reviewer, and expert advisor for academic journals, doctoral programs, research councils, and scientific committees. She is co-editor of Learning and Teaching in the Music Studio – A Student-Centred Approach (Springer, 2022), Research Perspectives on Music Education in Ibero-America (Routledge, 2025), and Caring for Gifted and Talented Music Learners (Oxford University Press, forthcoming).

Dr. López-Íñiguez is dedicated to supporting musicians across all stages of development—nurturing their physical and cognitive growth and fostering socio-emotional wellbeing. She mentors the next generation of researchers and performers, guiding them in critically engaging with empirically grounded and conceptually oriented work across areas including self-directed learning, curriculum and pedagogy innovation, student wellbeing, aesthetic care, and repertoire interpretation. Through this mentorship, she helps her students disseminate their work, develop independent scholarly networks, and cultivate research that is both practically impactful and theoretically rigorous.

She earned her Doctorate in Psychology, applied to music education, from Madrid Autonomous University in 2014, graduating summa cum laude and later receiving the extraordinary prize for the faculty’s best doctoral thesis, establishing a strong foundation for her interdisciplinary research.

Although her performing career is currently on hold due to academic commitments, she is a classically trained cellist. She earned a Bachelor’s degree in Cello Performance from the Madrid Royal Conservatory and a Master’s degree in Period Cello Performance from the Sibelius Academy. Her recordings of the complete cello works by Gabrielli and Scarlatti (2018) and Mendelssohn (2019), released by Alba Records, received critical acclaim. She has performed at leading venues and festivals across Europe and the U.S. on baroque, classical, and modern cellos.