Leire Fernandez graduated in Industrial Engineering at the Bilbao School of Engineering at the University of the Basque Country. After a short summer internship at CIC energiGUNE, she carried out a Master in Nanoscience with the UPV and CSIC in Donostia. She developed her master’s thesis about nanostructured transducers for plasmonic biosensing at CIC nanoGUNE.

On finishing her studies, Leire moved to the United Kingdom under the Basque Government´s Global Training working scholarship. She stayed there working in the aeronautical manufacturing industry for nearly two years, when she realized she was more into researching. So, she decided to move back to Basque Country to look for a sustainability-related research project.

She is currently working at CIC energiGUNE as a Pre-Doctoral Researcher in the "Cell Prototyping" group focusing on solid-state cathode research.