She settled in Dundee and was a shop steward with the Universities and Colleges Union (UCU).

[2] On 7 May 2021 she was unsuccessful as Labour's candidate for Dundee City West,[3] but the following day was elected as a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) through the North East Scotland list.

[5] In 2022, she called for the Labour whip to be restored to Jeremy Corbyn after having it suspended for failing to retract his remarks in response to the EHRC report into anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, as demanded by Keir Starmer and David Evans.

[9] In October 2023, just after the Hamas attack on Israel, Villalba expressed her position on the Palestine-Israel conflict through social media.

She tweeted that she perceives the "systematic oppression and domination of Palestinians by the Israeli government" as a "crime against humanity", advocating for an end to the occupation of Palestine as a precondition for peace and justice.