Àngels Martínez Castells

Castells was born in Mollet del Vallès.[1] She attended the University of Barcelona, where she graduated with a doctorate in economics, having previously also studied commerce, philosophy, literature, and law.[2] Her thesis was directed by Fabián Estapé, in which she studied governance in Portugal following the Carnation Revolution.[2]

After her PhD, Castells became a professor of economic policy in the Faculty of Economic and Business Sciences at the University of Barcelona.[1] In 1999 she became the first woman candidate of EUiA in the elections to the European Parliament representing the PCC in the IU-EUiA candidacy and in 2004 she was second in the ICV-EUiA candidacy led by Raul Romeva but was not elected.[3]

In 2000, Castells was the Vice President of the Pere Ardiaca Foundation.[4]

Castells was a founding member of the United and Alternative Left, a Catalonian political party.[1] She served for years as a member of the National Council of that party.[1]

Castells ran for European Parliament for the United and Alternative Left in 1999, and in 2004 she was again on the United and Alternative Left ticket, but she was not elected.[5]

In 2009, Castells co-founded, and then chaired, the public health platform Dempeus per la Salut Pública.[6] In 2013, she was elected to the Scientific Council of the Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions and for Citizens' Action.

In May 2015, Castells was ranked in the 32nd place on the party list of the Barcelona en Comú in the municipal elections.[7] In July 2015, she was elected in a primary election to hold the second position on the list of Podemos for the Catalonian parliamentary elections.[8] After the coalition Catalunya Sí que es Pot was formed, she was also highly placed on the resultant party list, and she was elected to the Parliament of Catalonia where she served until 2017.[9]