Maria Ballestar de las Heras

María Teresa Ballestar earned her B.A. in Statistics from the Universidad de Zaragoza, and both her M.Sc. in Marketing and Market Research and M.A. in Information and Knowledge Society from the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain. She received her Ph.D. in Applied Economics from the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid, Spain.

She is an Associate Professor with the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid. She has over 25 years of professional experience across industries such as IT consultancy, banking, pharmaceuticals, and start-ups, where she has led global and multidisciplinary teams in data analysis, digitalization, and innovation projects. She is currently the Head of Analytical Consultants at Google in Spain.

She focuses her research on bridging academia and business by applying data science, Big Data, and AI to areas such as customer behavior in e-commerce, the impact of public policy on productivity, and digital and technological transformation in companies.

She has published more than 20 articles in leading scientific journals and has served as an invited researcher at the University of Bath (UK) and Helsinki University. Currently, she holds the position of Visiting Associate Professor at LUT University.