Cristina Córdova received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Puerto Rico in Mayagüez and continued to earn a Master of Fine Arts in Ceramics from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. In 2002 she entered a three year artists residency program at Penland School of Crafts where she later served in the board of trustees from 2006 to 2010.

Recognitions include a 2015 USA Artist Fellowship, an American Crafts Council Emerging Artist Grant, a North Carolina Arts Council Fellowship, a Virginia Groot Foundation Recognition Grant and several International Association of Art Critics Awards.

Cristina has taught at Penland School of Crafts (NC), Haystack Mountain School (ME), Santa Fe Clay (NM), Mudfire (GA) ,Odyssey Center for Ceramics (NC) and Anderson Ranch (CO) ,among others.

In 2011 she founded TravelArte (travel-arte.com), an ongoing platform that provides educational experiences  within the ceramics medium while immersing students in the creative culture of a particular geographical setting. 

Her work is part of the permanent collections of the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington , D.C.), the Fuller Craft Museum, (MA), the Mint Museum of Craft and Design (NC), the Museum of Contemporary Art of Puerto Rico ( PR), the Museum of Art of Puerto Rico (PR), and the Joseph-Schein Museum in NY.

She currently lives and works in Western North Carolina.