Gabriela (Gaby) Contreras is an Assistant Professor in Economics and Business Economics at Radboud University in the Netherlands. She has a Ph.D. in Finance from Maastricht University.

Gaby is a  social networks, multidisciplinary researcher. Her interest in social justice has led her to develop a research identity lying at the intersection of sociology, economics, business, gender issues, regulation, and sustainability. She has researched questions ranging from the adoption of environmental codes of conduct by financial institutions to the role of affirmative action programs in women's representation in top management. The multidisciplinary spirit of her research is best reflected in the journals where her work has been published which includes The Lancet, World Development, and PLoS One.

Gaby is a Phi Theta Kappa, Tau Beta Pi and Alpha Pi Mu Graduate from The University of Texas at Arlington. And she holds two Master's Degree, one in Multidisciplinary Economics with a minor in Geography from Utrecht University in the Netherlands and the second one in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research from the University of California Berkeley. 

Gaby is an avid educator always looking for ways to innovate in teaching. As such, she is involved in REFLECT a project to activate self-reflection among students for the purpose of stimulating life-long learning. This project is led by Senior Comenius Teaching Fellow, Dr. Jana Vyrastekova.

Some of Gaby's extracurricular activities include managing her own dance fitness instruction business, immersing and learning about the Dutch culture and language, Near Eastern history and culture, impressionist art and history, hiking, and dog training. 
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In addition to her academic work and extracurricular activities, Gaby has worked as a Project Leader at the Service Science Factory (SSF), a think thank bridging academia and business. As a Project Leader at SSF, she led a multidisciplinary and multicultural team of nine through a project initiated by the Dean of the School of Business and Economics at Maastricht University. 

Upon completing her Master's Degree at Cal Berkeley, Gaby worked at Bank of America (BoA) in Charlotte, North Carolina.  As an Operations Project Consultant at BoA, she mainly worked in operational risk and she was also involved in the deployment of the Check 21 initiative with which the entire check platform would be transitioned into a digital system. She also worked as a Quantitative Research Associate within an R&D team in Consumer Risk. As a Quant, she was responsible for developing innovative leading indicators for predicting default probabilities in both the credit card and home equity portfolios. As a Quant, she was able to use her strong quantitative skills from Engineering and she developed an interest in Finance and Economics which then led her into moving to Europe to further her knowledge in these fields.