Mari attended Pearson United World College in Canada before studying at Oxford University. After graduating, she travelled in Mexico and Zimbabwe and worked as a research assistant in the House of Commons.
In 1998, she took a PGCE course and began her career as a secondary school teacher. She taught English, Drama and Philosophy for over fifteen years, while continuing to study. In 2001, she completed her MA in Education; in 2011, she was awarded her Doctorate.
Since 2014, Mari has been running the secondary English PGCE course at Roehampton. She is also a trained coach and leads the PG Cert in Coaching and Mentoring. In addition, Mari works as an External Exaimer for a range of universities, she marks GCSE Literature papers, and is a member of OCR’s expert panel on English. She plays an active role in disseminating research on English teaching and regularly acts as a peer reviewer. She has been involved in teachers’ writing groups since 2009 and has published numerous poems, playscripts, book reviews and academic articles.