Dr Maria M. Palacios

Maria's research

Maria is a marine ecologist, project manager, and science communicator based at Deakin University’s Blue Carbon Lab. She is originally from Colombia and received her PhD from James Cook University, Queensland in 2017. Maria has worked for  10+ years in marine and coastal ecosystems, including coral reefs, mangroves and tidal marshes.

After joining the Blue Carbon Lab, Maria established the award-winning Blue Carbon Citizen Science program – which has engaged 350+ citizen scientists into coastal wetland research across Australia and New Zealand. To date the program has collected over 1000 carbon stock samples from 12 sites and  surveyed more than 300 plots of mangroves and saltmarsh.  The program began as a partnership with HSBC Australia and Earthwatch Institute targeting corporate executives from Australia’s top industries, but has now expanded to include community groups and schools.

Maria is the project manager for the ‘Roadmap to Blue Carbon opportunities in Seychelles’ program (funded by the Seychelles’ Conservation and Climate Adaptation Trust) and the ‘Building Adaptive Capacity in the Gippsland Region: Wetland Restoration Citizen Science‘ program (funded by DELWP’s Community Climate Change Adaptation grants).  Additional to her experience managing large research teams and undertaking stakeholder surveys/interviews, Maria coordinates the science communication strategy for the Blue Carbon Lab (website, social media, media releases).  She has 12+ peer-reviewed publications and has received $280K+ in research grants.