Marianela Navarro Ciudad is a professor and researcher in the School of Education at the Universidad de los Andes. She studied Cellular Biology at the Universidad Paris VII in France and then studied Pedagogy in Biology at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.  She completed a Master’s in Evaluation and then a Ph.D. in Education at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. She has participated in various research projects related to the teaching of science, initial teacher preparation, and teacher competencies in the area of evaluation of learning. She is currently the lead researcher in a project studying attitudes and self-efficacy in the teaching of science and the gender gap in science instruction in elementary teacher preparation. In the area of evaluation and learning measurement, she has been involved in different national initiatives related to evaluating knowledge of graduates from teacher preparation programs, measuring in-service teacher performance, and as a science consultant for the university admissions exam.  Her principal interest is in decreasing the gender gap in STEM areas in K-12 education.