Luz Maria works as an environmental socio-economics interdisciplinary researcher using qualitative and quantitative approaches. She is part of the Information and Computational Sciences Group (ICS).
She has carried out research on landscape scale management (land use systems, multi-agent multi-level, environmental policies); poverty; provision of ecosystem services (governance and PES) and food systems. She has carried out her research in Mexico and Scotland with short research visits in France, Portugal, Brazil and Germany. 
With a background in economics, Luz Maria initially carried out research on poverty, agriculture and rural development policies in Mexico. This research work won her a national award and was published as a book by UNAM-Mexico: El papel de PROGRESA en la reproducción de las unidades domésticas campesinas : estudio en una comunidad totonaca de Huehuetla, Puebla
Luz Maria completed a Masters degree in Social Anthropology at EHESS-Paris, complementing her experience of quantitative and statistical instruments with qualitative methods and participatory observation applied to the ethnography of food circulation during the Day of the Dead rituals in an indigenous community. After a further year of postgraduate studies, at the Laboratoire d'Anthropologie Sociale (Collège de France-EHESS), she became interested in carrying out research in a European context.
Luz Maria finished a Masters degree in Land Economics (Rural Surveying accredited for RICS) at the University of Aberdeen; and a PhD at the University of Birmingham (School of Geography) on cooperation and collaboration at the landscape scale for conservation in Scotland.