Yolanda de Miguel carried out her B.Sc. degree in Chemistry (B.Sc. Hons., 1st Class, 1993) and her Ph.D. in Chemistry (1997) at Imperial College (London, UK). During her degree, she received the Alfred Bader Prize for excellence in organic chemistry for 1993 and the SmithKline Beecham Prize in Practical Chemistry for 1992. Upon graduating, she gained a highly prestigious and competitive British Petroleum PhD Studentship Award which fully funded her Ph.D. thesis entitled “Design and Synthesis of Polymer-Supported Ligands for Catalysts”. After this, she worked on her Post-Doctoral research (1997-1998) at the University of Cambridge (UK), where she gained another prestigious award, a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship (1998-2002), which allowed her to begin her independent academic research career, first as a Fellow and College Lecturer at Newnham College (Cambridge University, 1998-1999) and later as a University Lecturer and leader of her own research group at King´s College London (1999-2003), working on the study of “Solid-Phase Organic Synthesis” and its industrial applications. In addition, from 2001 until 2003, she acted as President of the “Young Chemists’ Panel” of the Society of Chemical Industry (UK).

In 2003, personal circumstances and a keen interest in technology prompted her to move from academia in the UK to the largest Technological Centre in Spain, TECNALIA, where she has worked as Principal Researcher in Nanotechnology (until 2014) and later as Nanotechnology Director (2014-present). In this position, she has gained experience in technology transfer mechanisms and has been able to work closely with high-tech industrial partners from different sectors. Some of her main innovations in this field include the design, synthesis and functionalization of nanomaterials aimed at the development of novel materials and products, such as nanostructured coatings, hybrid materials, air-purifying photocatalytic materials, self-healing concrete, etc.

Some of her achievements include, for instance, a large number of publications (with a current h-index of 20), a total of 7 PhD theses supervised (successfully completed) and 4 patent applications (3 granted) related to her nanotechnology-related research work. She has also been involved in the creation of a spin-off company (Nacoalia) aimed at exploiting one of the patents. And, at the end of 2015, she received (during the Materials Research Society (MRS) fall meeting en Boston, USA), the 2015 STAM Best Paper prize for her publication: "Dispersion and surface functionalization of oxide nanoparticles for transparent photocatalytic and UV-protecting coatings and sunscreens", Sci. Technol. Adv. Mater. 2013, 14 023001.

In 2016, she gave a TEDx talk on Nanotechnology entitled “Small Things Matter” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wY_Pt6FtXwE) and, in 2018, she was awarded a Basque Government prize for her research work and scientific and technological achievements throughout her career, having achieved excellence and a significant contribution to R&D&i in the Basque Country. In addition, more recently, she acted as Member of the Jury for the NOB166® Nanotechnology National Prize 2023.