Maria completed her Bachelor’s on Materials Science and Technology from the University of Crete in 2019. During her undergraduate thesis she worked on developing a protein-hybrid nanocarrier model to target lysosomal diseases. She, then, completed her Master’s on Protein Biotechnology at the University of Crete in 2022. Her interests shifted towards immunomodulatory scaffolds, which she worked on for her thesis, and more specifically, auxetic scaffolds and their effect on macrophage polarization. After graduating from her master’s she became an Erasmus+ trainee at the Technical University of Eindhoven, continuing to investigate how materials affect macrophages.

She is currently working on her PhD that focuses on the intricate interplay between the nervous and immune systems within the oviduct. The oviduct plays a pivotal role in orchestrating critical events of reproduction, such as gamete transport, fertilization, and early embryo development. However, the specific mechanisms underlying neuro-immune crosstalk in this dynamic microenvironment remain largely unexplored, which is why utilizing an innovative 3D in vitro model to investigate them is essential.