Ana Ballesteros Pena is a Ramón y Cajal researcher in the Department of Sociology and Communication Sciences at the University of A Coruña and participates in the research groups Societies in Motion (ESOMI) and Gender and Politics (GEYPO, UCM).

Her main lines of research include prisons and prison policies, border control and immigration detention from a gender and intersectional perspective.

In recent years, she was the principal investigator for the GEIPP project Gender Equality and Intersectionality in Prison Policies: A Multi-Governed Analysis (2023-2025), under a Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoctoral contract (UNA4CAREER-COFUND) at the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM). She is currently part of the research team for the national projects La frontera de la legalidad y los retos del derecho penitenciario: fortaleciendo las garantías en la ejecución penal (FORTLEG PID2024-157155NA-I00) and Crisis política y sistema penal multiescalar (MultipLex PID2024-157636NB-I00) and international projects Prison Transparency Project PTP, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council SSHRC, Canada, and Expulsões: medidas compulsórias e aprisionamentos de estrangeiros em perspectiva interseccional e comparada, funded by the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa from the State of São Paulo, Brazil.

Her most outstanding bibliographic contributions include:

• Ballesteros-Pena, A., Bustelo, M. & Mazur, A.G. (eds) (2026). Gender Equality Behind Bars: A Feminist Approach to penality policies worldwide, Palgrave.
• Ballesteros Pena, Ana (2025).) Transformaciones en el archipiélago del control migratorio en España: el caso de las Islas Canarias. Scripta Nova, 29 (1), 103-129
• Ballesteros-Pena, A. & Bustelo, M. (2024) Gender Equality Policies “Confined”: Adopted Frames in the Prison System in Spain, Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society, 31 (4): 657–680
• Ballesteros-Pena, A., Fernández-Bessa, C. & Brandariz, JA (2023). The Detention Obsolescence: Versatility, Expendability and Plasticity in the Field of Immigration Confinement. Punishment and Society, 26(3): 527–546
• Ballesteros-Pena, A., Bustelo, M. & Mazur, A.G. (2023) Theorizing the Penal State: The Darkside of Gender Regimes in the Case of Spain. Women’s Studies International Forum 99 (2023) 102743. Available online 30 May 2023
• Ballesteros-Pena, A. & Bustelo, M. (2023) Gender equality in prison reform in Spain: a gender-biased closed policy system prevents real change, European Journal of Politics and Gender, 6(1):23-39
• Super, G., & Ballesteros-Pena, A. (2022). Violence and bordering on the margins of the State: A view from South Africa and the southern border of Spain. Theoretical Criminology, 26(4), 580-600