Professor at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul and Member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences. Graduated in Biological Sciences from the State University of Rio de Janeiro (1983), Master's degree in Biochemistry from Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (1987), and Ph.D. in Biologie Moleculaire des Plantes - Université de Strasbourg - France (1993).

Marcia is a member of the Committee for Advisory in Genetics (CA-GE) of the CNPq (2011-2014). Board Member of the Brazilian Society of Genetics (SBG), from 2010 to 2018), and president of the SBG (2016-2018). Member of CTNBio from March 2012 to February 2014. Coordinator of the Graduate Program in Genetics of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (2000-2001) and the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (2011-2015). Editor-in-Chief of the Genetics and Molecular Biology. Associate editor of the Environmental and Experimental Botany. President of the International Genetics Federation (September 2018-July 2023).

Marcia’s research is in plant genetics with a focus on plant defense, abiotic stress responses, antioxidant metabolism, and plant functional genomics. Supervised 12 post-Doc, 57 graduate students (27 Ph.D. and 30 MSc), and several undergraduate students.