Ioana Iacob was born in 1980 in Timisoara. After graduating from the German Nikolaus Lenau High School, she completed her acting studies at the German class of the Faculty of Music and Theatre at the West University of Timisoara in 2002. 

She has been part of the ensemble of the German State Theatre in Timisoara since 2002. Here she collaborates with Radu A. Nica, Alexandru Dabija, Cornelia Crombholz, Bocsárdi László, Yuri Kordonsky, Florin Fieroiu, Vlaicu Golcea, Niky Wolcz, Volker Schmidt, Irisz Kovacs and Gábor Tompa, among others. In 2016 and 2020, she briefly served as interim director of the GSTT. Repeatedly, she also took on roles at the Auăleu Theatre in Timisoara and the Mihai Eminescu National Theatre in Timisoara. 

In recent seasons, she has appeared and is appearing in the performances "Romanian Diary. Timisoara" (play and direction: Carmen Lidia Vidu), "Humans. For Sale" (play and direction: Carmen Lidia Vidu), "The Cherry Orchard" by A.P. Chekhov (direction: Volker Schmidt), "A Midsummer Night's Dream" after the work of William Shakespeare (direction: Kristóf Szabó) and in "Lysistrata 3.0" by Aristophanes (direction: Niky Wolcz). 

Ioana Iacob took part in several films in Poland and abroad, directed by Radu Jude, Christoph Hochhäusler, Radu Gabrea, Natalia Sinelnikova and Andreas Kleinert. The films were shown at important international film festivals, including the Berlinale.