Marta joined the Sustainability Research Institute at the University of Leeds  in December 2012 as a research fellow. She recently secured a Met Office University Academic Fellowship.

She is a PI on a H2020 project ‘Turning climate-related information into added value for traditional MEDiterranean Grape, OLive and Durum wheat food systems’ (2017-2021) and a PI in a Newton Fund Climate Science for Service Partnership project looking at priorities for urban climate services development in China (2017-2019). She is working with Professor Suraje Dessai on a EU FP7 project entitled European Provision Of Regional Impacts Assessments on Seasonal and decadal timescales (EUPORIAS).  Marta co-ordinated the assessment of users’ needs with regard to seasonal to decadal climate predictions across European sectors and she is currently working on assessing the value of seasonal climate forecasts in decision-making processes. For more on the EUPORIAS project see: www.euporias.eu

Marta is also a Co-I on the Coperncius (http://www.copernicus.eu/) project Sector Engagement for C3S, Translating European User Requirements (SECTEUR) where she leads the user engagment across European sectors.

Prior to her work at Leeds, Marta completed her PhD in Scotland on climate change vulnerability and adaptation funded by the Scottish Alliance for Geoscience, Environment, and Society (SAGES). The PhD project aimed to contribute to current understanding and knowledge of climate change vulnerability assessments (CCVA) by exploring the main challenges encountered whilst performing a CCVA in Scotland. At a more conceptual level, the thesis also examined how the conceptual and analytical elements of CCVA described in the climate change literature as critical can be pursued in practice, and the existing agency at the local level in Scotland to act upon the outcomes of such local vulnerability assessments.

Prior to starting her academic career, Marta worked as a policy planner in the UK focusing on developing climate change planning policies at the local level and working on related activities (public consultation, strategic environmental assessment, GIS, and monitoring).

Qualifications

• PhD on Climate change vulnerability and adaptation (University of the West of Scotland and Edinburgh University)
• MSc in Spatial Planning (Oxford Brookes University)
• BSc in Environmental Management (Universidade Atlantica)

Memberships/Fellowships

• Postgraduate Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society

Research Interests

• Seasonal to decadal climate predictions
• Climate services
• Climate change vulnerability, adaptation, and governance