Susana Martínez Rodríguez is Full Professor of Economic History at the Department of Economic History of the University of Murcia. She holds a PhD in Economic History from the University of Santiago de Compostela (2004) and an MA in Population and Migrations (2001).

She was awarded pre- and postdoctoral scholarships from public institutions (Xunta de Galicia 1999–2000; FPU 2000–2005; Postdoctoral Grant 2005–2006; Castillejo Young Researchers Grant 2011; Postdoctoral I3 at the Autonomous University of Barcelona) and private entities (Caixa Galicia 1999; CajaMurcia 2012; Harvard Business School, 2019). She carried out postdoctoral research at the University of Florence, the Autonomous University of Barcelona, and Yale University, and was a Visiting Fellow at the Economic Growth Center at Yale (2007–2018), where she was also awarded the prestigious Thomas K. McCraw Fellowship in U.S. Business History by Harvard Business School (2019).

She has taught as a lecturer at the University of Santiago de Compostela, the Autonomous University of Barcelona, York University (as a teaching assistant), and the University of Murcia, where she has held various academic positions (Assistant Professor and Associate Professor, both on tenure track and with tenure). She has been Principal Investigator of two research projects funded by the Spanish National R&D Plan, two projects funded by the Fundación Séneca-Regional Agency for Science and Technology of Murcia, one project funded by the Secretariat of the Presidency of the Xunta de Galicia, and one research contract funded by the Departament de Treball of the Generalitat de Catalunya. Overall, she has participated as researcher or collaborator in over a dozen national and international research projects.

She has taught as a lecturer at the University of Santiago de Compostela, the Autonomous University of Barcelona, York University (as a teaching assistant), and the University of Murcia, where she has held various academic positions (Assistant Professor and Associate Professor, both on tenure track and with tenure). She has been Principal Investigator of two research projects funded by the Spanish National R&D Plan, two projects funded by the Fundación Séneca-Regional Agency for Science and Technology of Murcia, one project funded by the Secretariat of the Presidency of the Xunta de Galicia, and one research contract funded by the Departament de Treball of the Generalitat de Catalunya. Overall, she has participated as researcher or collaborator in over a dozen national and international research projects.

She is currently Vice-Chair of the COST Action 18110 Underground4Value (2019–2023), an interdisciplinary research network focused on the conservation of underground heritage and the use of underground space in urban and rural areas for regeneration policies.

She is the author of more than 200 scientific contributions (journal articles, books, book chapters, and conference presentations at national and international events). Her research lines include economic thought, cooperativism, the history of commercial companies, and business history from a gender perspective. Since 2007, she has worked on a research project on the history of commercial companies in collaboration with Tim Guinnane (Yale), connected to an original line of research promoted by leading international scholars such as Naomi Lamoreaux (Yale), Ron Harris (Tel Aviv), and Jean-Laurent Rosenthal (UCLA). This research challenges the absolute dominance of the joint-stock company in the development of modern capitalism and highlights the vitality of other intermediate legal forms, such as the limited liability company. This has allowed her to make original contributions to the history of corporate legal forms in Spain, a topic that had not previously been explored.

More recently, she has studied the presence of women as partners in commercial companies and as investors in capital markets. Based on a unique and original database containing microdata on the founders of Spanish commercial companies (1886–1936), she found that, contrary to received wisdom, Spanish women played an active and visible role in business activities at the beginning of the 20th century — a fact largely ignored by conventional historiography.