María Esther Leyva Ollivier is a marine scientist with a BSc in Oceanology and an MSc in Water and Coastal Management. Her professional journey began at the Mexican Centre Innovation in Ocean Energy (CEMIE-OCEANO) with the Ensenada Center for Scientific Research and Higher Education (CICESE). During this time, she was a substitute lecturer for the "Environmental Engineer" course at the Autonomous University of Baja California (UABC). She received a studentship from the ERASMUS+ programme of the European Commission to pursue her joint Master studies in Water and Coastal Management at the University of Bologna, University Cadiz and University of Algarve. She did an internship hosted at the University of Maryland, where she partnered with Future Earth Coasts. She was then granted a fellowship from the Murray Foundation to support her research in the Marine and Environmental Research Center- Aquatic Research Network (CIMA-ARNET) at the University of Algarve. María has published two scientific articles. She has made one symposium presentation (July 2022) and two conference presentations (June 2023, May 2015). Additionally, she has led two workshops, one at the Universidad Politécnica de Gómez Palacio (UPGP) and one at the European Lagoon Conference (EUROLAG10). Maria has recently been granted a PhD studentship by the Portugues Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia to pursue her Doctoral research. Keywords that describe her research interests are: management of social-ecological (coastal) systems; land-ocean interactions; sustainability of coastal areas; interdisciplinary projects; holistic and transdisciplinary research; stakeholder engagement and participation. Her expertise includes: sustainability assessment; adaptive management frameworks; science communication and holistic management.