Maria joined UCL as a Professor of Law in 200, and was director or co-director of the UCL Centre for Law and the Environment for over a decade. She has been a member of the editorial committees of a number of journals, including currently the Journal of Environmental Law, and is co-editor of Current Legal Problems.

In 2025, she was elected as a new Fellow of the British Academy in recognition of her outstanding contribution to the humanities and social sciences.

Maria teaches and researches environmental law and policy, with a long-standing interest in the ways in which law shapes decision-making. Her current areas of work are broadly on the ways in which environmental groups use and understand legal expertise and on planning law. Both of these strands of work relate to long-standing interests in expertise, public participation and democracy in environmental matters. She has also worked on the relationships and interactions between tort law and regulation.

Maria was a member of the Executive Committee of the Society of Legal Scholars until 2021, and chaired their Research Grants Committee and Law School and the Climate Crisis fund until 2023. She is a frequent member of panels assessing funding applications and academic prizes.

Maria has worked extensively with civil society and policy makers. She has been a member of Greener UK’s Brexit Scenarios Group, of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution and the London Sustainable Development Commission.

Maria was previously a lecturer and senior lecturer at King's College London and at the University of Central Lancashire.

For publications, see here.