Mari Shioya holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and Political Sciences from Chuo University in Japan. She was awarded an M.Sc. in Environmental Resource Management from University College Dublin and was then granted a national scholarship for pursuing Ph.D. degree for studies at the Environmental Planning and Management Programme of the Faculty of Natural Science at Comenius University and Slovak Academy of Sciences, where she also worked as a research fellow. During her studies, she participated in several summer schools funded by Marie Curie Fellowship at Sussex University, Vrije University and Freie University organized by the Earth System Governance Project.

Prior to joining UNU as a Ph.D. Fellow, she was working as an economic advisor at the Slovak-Japanese Chamber of Commerce in Bratislava, the Slovak Tourism Board and the Slovak Embassy in Tokyo. She also gained experience working as a community development assistant in the State of Johor in Malaysia and as a seasonal park ranger in Killarney National Park in Ireland.

Her main areas of research interest are resource economics, environmental resource management, sustainable tourism management, adaptive governance for climate change and resilience study for land use.