Ms. Marianela Araya-Quesada, a Costa Rican National, has a Bachelor´s degree in Biotechnology engineering from the Instituto Tecnológico de Costa Rica and a master in Biosafety in plant biotechnology from the Università Politecnica delle Marche in Ancona, Italy. Before joining UNEP, she worked as a post doctoral biosafety fellow at the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB), initially in Trieste, Italy, and later on in ICGEB office in Buenos Aires, Argentina. During her professional career she has been involved in different biosafety issues ranging from technical consultancies and publications, to the coordination of workshops, stakeholder consultation activities and assessment of biosafety needs among others. Moreover, she has been particularly involved with biosafety capacity building for Sub-saharan Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean regions.
Ms. Araya-Quesada is based in the UNEP Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean (ROLAC). She is directly responsible as the Task Manager for UNEP-GEF Biosafety Implementation Projects for Latin America and the Caribbean Region(s). She assumed office in Panama on the 15th May 2012.
