Rosa López studied Chemistry at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and began her research career in the Carbohydrates Group at the Instituto de Química Orgánica General (CSIC). In 1992, she spent three months as a visiting student at the Chemical Center (Lund, Sweden). She obtained her PhD in October 1994 at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid under the supervision of Prof. A. Fernández-Mayoralas, working on the chemoenzymatic synthesis of oligosaccharides. In 1995, she moved to Harvard University to carry out postdoctoral studies in the group of Prof. R. Rando, studying RNA–antibiotic interactions at the molecular level. Fifteen months later, she joined the Department of Chemistry at MIT to work with Prof. G. C. Fu on tin-catalyzed deoxygenation reactions. At the end of 1997, she returned to the Instituto de Química Orgánica General (CSIC) and shortly afterwards joined the group of Prof. Claudio Palomo at the University of the Basque Country. There, she held several academic positions, including a Ramón y Cajal fellowship, before being appointed Permanent Researcher in 2012. Since 2022, she has been a member of the Sustainable Catalysis Group: Methods and Computation at the University of the Basque Country. Her research has included synthetic chemistry, enzymatic processes, carbohydrate chemistry, molecular biology, and catalysis. Her current research focuses on asymmetric catalysis and the development of new catalytic transformations to address stereochemical challenges in synthesis. She has authored more than 40 scientific publications, two book chapters, and two patents (ORCID: 0000-0002-7305-2464).

She also serves as a Member of the Board of the Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry (RSEQ) and as Secretary of its Specialized Group of Organic Chemistry (GEQOR).