Daniela Santa-Marta holds a master’s degree in Education and Society from the School of Sociology and Public Policy at ISCTE and a degree in Anthropology, from Goldsmiths College. Her master's dissertation, argued in 2023, "Education and gender socialisation of young girls in residential care: A case study at Casa Laranja", looks at the role of residential care institutions in combating gender inequalities, through the educational and intervention strategies of a residential reception centre for young people.

She has been a researcher at the Research and Studies in Sociology Centre (CIES) since 2021, where she was part of the academic team of Racip, an AMIF project, that acted around refugee integration through civil society organisations, for three years. Daniela was part of the academic team for the Erasmus+ Space4us project, which aimed to promote and support the autonomy, personal development, and social integration of adolescent girls in vulnerable situations, as well as identifying a set of recommendations for youth workers, from a gender and intersectional perspective.

As part of the RaCip project, among other tasks, Daniela took part in the construction of a working paper, a methodological toolkit for data collection and the impact assessment of the pilot projects, developed by the Racip partner organisations. She also took part in the construction of a theoretical training module on integration and delivered the session within Racip’s trainers' training programme.

For the SPACE4US project, which lasted for two years, Daniela participated in the construction of the project's theoretical-methodological toolkit and three non-formal learning workshops on gender and co-designed the module "Why does gender matter?". She was part of the team that organised the participatory research activities with the girls and the workshops developed by the Space4us partnership. Daniela delivered the theoretical session of the Space4us international trainers’ training programme and the national training course for youth workers. She collaborated in data collection and analysis and in drawing up the project results report.  

Daniela collaborated with the Planoi association as part of the MaRvel project: masculinities revealed in the construction of the project's methodological toolkit.

During her academic experience, she carried out research projects around migration and structural violence, including producing an ethnographic film - "Benefits: Bureaucratic Whirlpools and Vulnerability". Her degree dissertation focussed on structural violence and the London riots of 2011 - "The London Riots: the (in)visibility of violence".

She has built and facilitated an independent non-formal education project in various centres and community spaces in Mexico and contributes to WorldByte the School of Citizen TV - an organisation that produces alternative broadcast programmes focused on equality, social justice, the "without borders" movement and open-access training in film production and activist journalism - and to the Peace Pledge Union.