She received her Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University, and her M.Sc. and B.Sc. (Summa Cum Laude) degrees in Electrical Engineering from University of Ottawa, Canada. Her research is focused on reaching the next level of adaptive intelligent behavior in Internet of Things systems and applications. Maria has several years of industry experience, and has been affiliated with Telcordia Technologies, IBM, and D. E. Shaw Research. Maria is a recipient of the Google Anita Borg USA Fellowship, Canadian Graduate Scholar NSERC Fellowships, and the Columbia University Presidential Fellowship. She is a co-recipient of the 2011 ACM SenSys Best Student Demonstration Award, the 2011 IEEE Communications Society Award for Advances in Communications, and the 2016 IEEE Communications Society Young Author Best Paper Award.