Izabela Naydenova received her MSc in applied optics from the University of Sofia in 1993 and PhD in physics from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in 1999. She was a Postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Physical and Theoretical Chemistry, Technical University of Munich, (1999-2002). Joined the Centre for Industrial and Engineering Optics, Dublin Institute of Technology as an Arnold F. Graves postdoctoral research fellow in October 2002 and took up a position as a Lecturer in the School of Physics, Dublin Institute of Technology in September 2008. She was awarded an Honorary Profesorship in 2017. In 2021 Prof. Naydenova became the Scientific Director of the Centre for Industrial and Engineering Optics. Since April 2023 she is the Head of Discipline for Physics and Clinical Measurement Science at the School of Physics, Clinical and Optometric Sciences, TU DUblin. 

Izabela Naydenova has more than 25 years of academic teaching and research since attaining her PhD. She is the author and co-author of more than 119 peer reviewed journal papers,  7 book chapters and 64 full length papers published in conference proceesings, has a h index >30 and > 4000 citations. She is the editor of three books: “Holograms: Recording Materials and Applications”, InTech Open Access Publisher, ISBN 978-953-307-981-3 ,  “Advanced holography: Metrology and Imaging”, InTech Open Access Publisher, ISBN 978-953-307-729-1 and Holographic Materials and Optical Systems ISBN: 978-953-51-3037-6.

Izabela Naydenova has 6 patents granted. She was a co-founder and a Scientific Adviser of Optrace Ltd (2013-2021). In 2013 she received a personal nomination for Knowledge Transfer Achiever Award by Knowledge Transfer Ireland for commercialisation work related to Optrace Ltd. In 2017 she received the Researcher Impact Award, DIT, Hothouse (shared with Prof V. Toal and Dr S. Martin).

Izabela Naydenova has supervised 18 PhD, 4 Phill and 59 Bachelor (Hon) students to their completion and mentored 7 postdoctoral researchers. Currently she is a supervisor/co-supervisor of 7 PhD students. She is a member of the following professional organisations - OPTICA, SPIE, TUI. She became an OPTICA Fellow in 2023. 

Prof. Naydenova has been organiser and member of the programme committees of more than 20 scientific international scientific meetings and conferences.  Since 2024, Prof. Naydenova has served as Chair of Holography: Advances and Modern Trends IX, a conference track within the biannual SPIE Optics + Optoelectronics Conference held in Prague, Czech Republic.

Prof. Naydenova's research interests include development of holographic techniques and recording materials for application in holographic sensors, holographic optical elements, optical detection of VOCs, optical sensors for wound healing monitoring, optical patterning at micron and sub-micron scale. She has been awarded more than €3 million (€1.1 million as PI,  €1.3 million as co-investigator and  €0.7 million as a host PI) by the EU, IRCSET (Research Ireland), Enterprise Ireland and the European Space Agency. She has successfully led 15 research projects (not including postdoctoral and postgraduate student projects).