M (Maria) Alonso Martinez, MSc

María is a researcher focused on food systems transformation, examining how everyday food practices, informal economies, and inclusive governance shape more just and sustainable futures. Her work integrates Social Practice Theories with lived experience methods to understand how people navigate their food security in rapidly changing food environments.

At Wageningen University, she works on the Better Diets and Nutrition project (BDN), funded by the CGIAR, where she investigates youth food environments in Ethiopia from a consumption perspective. Her research analyzes how ‘in-between’ spaces such as streets and school surroundings become sites of agency and negotiation in scarcity, and how these lived experiences can inform more context-sensitive policy interventions for sustainable and healthy diets.

Beyond academia, she has contributed to initiatives promoting circularity in agri-food MSMEs across Africa and the redesign of socially just subsidy programs in German cities with ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability. Before entering the sustainable development space, she worked in supplier risk certification for the Santandar Bank.

Through her work, she aims to connect theoretically informed research with inclusive and practical policy design in contexts of rapid social and environmental change.