Mariana received her undergraduate Life Sciences degree from the University of Toronto (2009) by the age of nineteen. During this time, she was Editor-in-Chief of the Review of Undergraduate Studies in Science, President of Women in Science and Engineering, and the Undergraduate Representative for the Governing Council of the University of Toronto. Upon graduating, Mariana became a finalist in Canada’s prestigious "Top 20 Under Twenty" for her academic and philanthropic work.

Presently, Mariana is completing her graduate degree at Harvard University, concentrating in Psychology. In 2011, Mariana was elected to be a Student Representative on the Harvard Graduate Council, serving on the Board of Internal Affairs. Mariana has also been an executive of the Harvard Graduate Consulting Club where, as the co-Vice President, she headed the club’s flagship event, the MIT vs. Harvard Case Competition in August of 2011.

Apart from her position as a lecturer at the University of Toronto in 2011, Mariana co-chaired the first conference under the Fields Cognitive Science Network: Empirical Study of Mathematics and How it is Learned at the prestigious Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences. Along with the Network co-directors Marcel Danesi and Rafael Núñez, she has most recently published 'Semiotic and Cognitive Science Essays on the Nature of Mathematics' (Munich: Lincom Europa). As of late, Mariana is a co-director of the Research in Forensic Semiotics (RIFS) Unit at the University of Toronto, particularly focusing her research on the use of metaphor and narrative as similarly used in forensic psychiatry.

CV available upon request.