Maria Ivanova is Associate Professor of Global Governance, Director of the Global Governance and Human Security Ph.D. program, and Director of the Center for Governance and Sustainability at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Her work focuses on the performance of international institutions, the implementation of international environmental agreements, and sustainability. She has been studying the United Nations Environment Programme and her book, The Untold Story of the World's Leading Environmental Institution: UNEP at Fifty, was published by MIT Press in 2021. Her current work examines national performance on global environmental conventions, and she engages with countries in East Africa to inform policy. 

From 2014 to 2016, Ivanova served on the Scientific Advisory Board of the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon. In 2020, she began a four-year term on the Joint Scientific Committee of the World Climate Research Programme. She is also an Andrew Carnegie Fellow and the Chair of the Board of the UN University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS). She serves on the External Advisory Board of the Environmental Solutions Initiative at MIT, on the Sustainability Advisory Council at Yale University, on the Carnegie Climate Governance Initiative (C2G2) Advisory Group, and on the Board of the Millennium Institute. In 2018, she chaired the jury for the $5 million New Shape Prize for global governance by the Global Challenges Foundation.