Cristina Fernández-Bessa is Ramón y Cajal senior research fellow in the Criminal Law Area of the University of A Coruña. Previously, she taught at the degrees of Criminology and the Masters in Criminology, Criminal Policy and Legal-Criminal Sociologyat of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, the Universitat de Barcelona (UB) and the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. She was a public policy consultant on human rights and citizenship for the local public administration, member of the consolidated research group Observatori del Sistema Penal i els Drets Humans of the UB and researcher of the Antigona Group (Law and Society with a gender perspective) of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. She has been visiting scholar at universities of the United States, Argentina, the Netherlands, Italy and Poland. She has edited and co-authored 6 books, and has published 18 scientific articles in academic journals and 22 book chapters. She has participated in 14 competitive research projects (9 European and one Canadian) and in 7 contracts and agreements and presented hes work in more than 120 national and international conferences, seminars and workshops in the field of criminology, law and society and immigration. She was the Spanish representative on the board of directors of the action -CA17102-Police Stops of the COST-European Cooperation in Science and Technology agency.