Guadalupe López Íñiguez

Introduktion

Dr. Guadalupe López-Íñiguez is a Spanish researcher, cellist, and educator specialising in instrumental pedagogy and performance science. She holds a permanent position as University Researcher at the Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki (Finland), where she is also a Docent in Music Education. She is an Honorary Senior Fellow at the University of Melbourne (Australia).

Dr. López-Íñiguez’s research focuses on the learning and development of musicians across the lifespan, with particular emphasis on giftedness, identity, motivation, wellbeing, and professional education. Her interdisciplinary work integrates perspectives from learning psychology, socio-cognitive constructivism, and developmental-ecological models of talent, alongside philosophical, sociological, and systemic approaches to music education and performance. Her scholarship is further informed by care ethics and sustainability, conceptualising music education as a relational and evolving ecosystem shaped by human interaction, institutional structures, and policy contexts.

She has authored over 70 peer-reviewed publications and is the author of "Real-Life Experiences of Children Gifted for Music" (Oxford University Press, forthcoming). She has also co-edited several volumes, including "Caring for Gifted and Talented Music Learners" (Oxford University Press, in press), "Research Perspectives on Music Education in Ibero-America" (Routledge, 2025), and "Learning and Teaching in the Music Studio – A Student-Centred Approach" (Springer, 2022; Spanish edition, Morata, 2020). She is regularly invited as a keynote speaker and expert advisor for funding bodies, international peer-reviewed journals, and educational and professional development programmes, and serves as opponent and pre-examiner for doctoral dissertations internationally.

Dr. López-Íñiguez currently leads the international research project "The Politics of Care in the Professional Education of Children Gifted for Music", funded by the Research Council of Finland (2022–2027). Since 2009, she has led or collaborated on numerous international research projects and received multiple awards for research excellence. Her projects include "Expanding Reflexivity of Professional Education in Times of Crises" (Wihuri Foundation, 2021–2022), "Transforming Musicianship: Developing Musicians’ Learner Identity" (Research Council of Finland, 2018–2021), and "Autoethnography of a Period Cellist" (Kone Foundation, 2016–2018). She has also contributed to projects funded by the European Commission, the Research Council of Finland, and the Spanish I+D+i programme.

Dr. López-Íñiguez holds several leadership roles in international academic and professional organisations. She is currently Commissioner for the International Society for Music Education’s Commission for the Education of the Professional Musician (CEPROM) and a member of the Steering Board of the Sibelius Academy’s Research and Doctoral Education Group. Her previous roles include Co-Chair of CEPROM, Co-Editor-in-Chief of "Revista Internacional de Educación Musical" (RIEM), and Vice-President of the Spanish Association for Psychology of Music and Music Performance (AEPMIM), among others.

Dr. López-Íñiguez received her PhD in Psychology (applied to music education) from the Autonomous University of Madrid in 2014, graduating summa cum laude and receiving the Extraordinary Doctoral Award. Alongside her academic career, she is a classically trained cellist, with degrees in cello performance from the Madrid Royal Conservatory of Music and the Sibelius Academy. Her recordings of the complete cello works by Gabrielli, Scarlatti, and Mendelssohn, released by Alba Records and performed on period instruments, have received critical acclaim, and she has performed extensively across Europe and the United States.

Current Doctoral Supervision:

• Giuseppe Gentile, "Music Performance Anxiety in Pre-University Education: a Psychosocial–Psychodynamic Perspective"

• Chun Li, "Promoting Music Teachers’ Aesthetic Care and Support of Gifted Children’s Aesthetic Existence in Specialist Music Education"

• Antti Snellman, "Sup­port­ing Stu­dent Au­ton­omy in Finnish Mu­sic Schools: En­hanc­ing Teach­ers’ Re­flec­tive Prac­tice"

• Kaisa Vähi, "In­stru­men­tal Ped­a­gogy in the Con­text of Po­liti­cal Regime Change: A Sys­tems View to Es­ton­ian Mu­sic Schools’ Cur­ric­u­lar Adapt­abil­ity"

Completed Doctoral Dissertations Supervised:

• Dora Utermohl de Queiroz, "Fostering Self-regulation in the Online Teaching and Learning of String Instruments"

• Tuula Jääskeläinen, "Music Students' Experiences of Workload, Stress, and Coping in Higher Education"

• Pedro Rodíguez, "New Pedagogical Approaches to the Context and Musical Meaning of the Viola Repertoire of the 20th and 21st Centuries"

ORCID ID: 0000-0002-4428-1356