Mariacristina De Nardi is currently a Professor at University College London, currently on leave from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, where she works as a Senior Economist and Research Advisor in the research department. De Nardi is also a Faculty Research Fellow of the National Bureau of Economic Research and a Research Fellow at the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS). Her research focuses on savings, health, aging, wealth inequality, social security, entrepreneurship and taxation. De Nardi's research has been published in the Review of Economic Studies, the Review of Economic Dynamics, the Oxford Review of Economic Policy, the Journal of Political Economy and the American Economic Review. Before joining the Chicago Fed in July 2005, De Nardi was an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota.

De Nardi received a B.A. in Economics from the University of Venice (Italy) in 1993 and a Ph.D in Economics from the University of Chicago in 1999.