He is director of the Templo Mayor Project in Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) since 1991 and son of renowned historian Alfredo López Austin.

López Luján received his bachelor's degree in archaeology from Mexico's National School of Anthropology and History (ENAH), which he attended from 1983 to 1987 as a student of Eduardo Matos Moctezuma, who directed his thesis on the Offerings of the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan (1990).

On November 5, 2018, López Luján was elected new member of El Colegio Nacional (The National College), a Mexican honorary academy that brings together the country's forty foremost artists and scientists.

His scholarship has contributed to our knowledge of indigenous strategies of recovering the distant past, the coded language of buried offerings, the conceptualization of animals as cosmic emblems, the functions and symbolism of sacred architecture, the uses and meanings of Mexica sculpture, the application of materials science to the study of pre-Hispanic art and artifacts, iconoclastic activities in times of crisis, mother goddess cults, and sacrificial practices, among other areas.

[5] The year 1980 was especially significant in his career, for he began working at INAH's Templo Mayor Project in the first (1978–1982) and second (1987) seasons of excavations in Tenochtitlan's sacred precinct under the direction of Eduardo Matos Moctezuma.