Maria Hayes is a Senior Research Officer at the Food BioSciences Department, Teagasc Food Research Centre, Dublin, Ireland. She obtained her B.Sc. from University College Dublin in 2002, her Ph.D. from University College Cork in 2007, and a Leadership Development Diploma from UCC/IMI in 2016. She is also an Adjunct Professor at the School of Food Science and Environmental Health, Technical University of Dublin. Her research interests include the utilisation of marine processing by-product/co-product streams for the development of functional foods for health and nutrition. Her specific area of interest is the isolation, characterization, and discovery of novel proteins and peptides with the potential to impact positively on human, companion animal and ruminant health.