Maria Mayan is a Professor, and Vice Dean, and an Associate Director of the Community-University Partnership in the School of Public Health. She is an engaged scholar who situates her work at the intersection of government, not-for-profit, structurally disadvantaged, and industry communities. She grounds her work in the policy environment and focuses on how we can work together on complex health and social issues. Her work focuses on the causes of marginalization and how to mobilize against systems of inequity, using primarily qualitative and community-engaged research in rigorous and creative ways.

As a qualitative methodologist, she has studied, written about, and conducted qualitative research since the early 1990s. She spent over ten years at the International Institute for Qualitative Methodology learning and teaching qualitative inquiry locally and internationally. Her qualitative expertise has culminated into a book, Essentials of Qualitative Inquiry; the second edition by Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/Essentials-of-Qualitative-Inquiry/Mayan/p/book/9781629583273

One of her most valued activities is joining with colleagues and graduate students to use both conventional and unconventional qualitative and community-based methods to explore intriguing and pressing health research issues. Her current research program is embedded in community economic development in Drayton Valley, Alberta.