María Antonia Peña Guerrero is Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Huelva.

A university lecturer since 1991 at the Universities of Seville and Huelva, she has been awarded 5 six-year research periods on a continuous basis and 1 transfer period. She also holds 5 autonomous sections. She has held academic posts at the University of Huelva and outside it. She has been Director of the Ibero-American Headquarters of La Rábida for five years and Vice-Rector for Internationalisation and Development Cooperation at the International University of Andalusia for seven years. During those seven years she has been first vice-president of the La Rábida Group, which brings together 81 Ibero-American universities. Since July 2017 she has been Rector of the University of Huelva.

As a researcher, her main works deal with the contemporary history of Spain from a social and political perspective, with special attention to the historiographical problem of caciquismo and clientelism. In this regard, her books El sistema caciquil en la provincia de Huelva. Clase política y partidos (1898-1923), which won the 9th Díaz del Moral Research Prize, and Clientelismo político y poderes periféricos durante la Restauración. Most of this research has been carried out within the framework of the research group "El aprendizaje de la democracia" (University of Huelva), which she directs as Principal Researcher.

Her second line of research is devoted to the study of political representation in Spain and America and has been developed as a result of her participation in four successive R+D+i projects on this topic and two Research Networks on the Cultural History of Politics with ministerial funding. As a result of this line of research, she has published numerous articles in national and international journals of high quality standards, participated as a guest lecturer or speaker in national and international scientific meetings (Verona, Lisbon, Alghero, Tucumán, Mexico, Bariloche, Bogotá, Szeged, Santiago de Chile, Berlin, Rosario, La Habana, Mendoza, Mar del Plata, New York), published a book on the subject together with

Professors M. Sierra and R. Zurita (Elegidos y elegibles. La representación parlamentaria en la cultura del liberalismo. Marcial Pons, Madrid, 2010) and participation in several monographs published in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Australia, Argentina and Portugal. Throughout these years, and on the occasion of visits to foreign archives and libraries, he has made several research stays in Rome, London, Paris, Havana, Lima and Bogota, which are reflected in his publications. In other areas of research, she has worked on the period of the War of Independence and on the impact of mining expansion and the business world in 19th century Spain.

She is an evaluator for ANEP and has been a member of, among other committees, the Board of Directors of the Contemporary History Association, the International Commission for the History of Representative and Parliamentary Institutions and the Advisory Councils of the Second Modernisation of Andalusia and the Centre for Political and Constitutional Studies (Madrid). He has been a member of the Editorial Board of the scientific journal Ayer (Madrid) and is currently a member of RIHUMSO (Argentina), Avances del CESOR (Argentina) and Historia y Sociedad (Colombia). Until 2019 she has directed, as Principal Researcher, the R+D+i Project "Cultural History of Political Corruption in Spain and Latin America (19th and 20th centuries)", leading a team of researchers from six Spanish and Latin American universities.

Recently, as a result of his latest research in this field, he has directed and published the books Historia cultural de la corrupción política: prácticas, escenarios y representaciones contemporáneas (Prohistoria, Rosario, Argentina, 2019), together with M. Bonaudo, and Corrupción política y liberalismo en el largo siglo XIX (Comares, Granada, 2020), together with D. Feria. Other works published in recent years include "The Peruvian Native and the Conception of Liberal Citizenship in the Latin American Context" (Newcastle, 2016), "The Independent and Incorruptible Deputy: An Exercise in Comparative History on Political Representation in Spain and the United States in Early Liberalism" (New York, 2017) and "Prosopography of the Spanish Deputies" (Sussex, 2018).