Mariana is a marine ecologist at the UNSW Sydney School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Science and co-founder of Living Seawalls, an award-winning international project that aims to mitigate biodiversity loss in our oceans caused by marine construction.

Mariana has more than 15 years’ experience working in the marine environment. Prior to joining UNSW in 2013, she was a private consultant, leading data analysis for one of the largest environmental projects in Australia – Chevron’s Gorgon Project. Her research focuses on how human activities, such as pollution and urbanisation, affect the marine environment, with the goal of developing evidence-based solutions to not only reduce their impacts, but also restore and rehabilitate marine ecosystems.