Maria Pujantell Graell has a degree in Biotechnology from City University of New York. During her studies, she interned at The Scripps Research Institute in Florida and also attended field workshops at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the New York Academy of Sciences.

After graduation, she worked at the Research Foundation of City University of New York, where she received the Sigma XI Award for Excellence in Research in Biotechnology. Nowadays, she is part of the HIV Pathogenesis team at IrsiCaixa, where she studies the interplay of nucleic acid metabolism and the innate immune system in order to understand response to infectious retroviruses. During her leisure time, she enjoys travelling with her family and working on her spiritual awakening.