Mariëlle graduated cum laude for two research masters: Methodology and Statistics of Social and Behavioral Sciences and Development and Socialization in Childhood and Adolescence at Utrecht University. In the former, she was taught about the fundamentals of statistics and techniques to investigate and solve statistical issues when they arise. Her participation in the latter showed her what applications of statistics are interesting to researchers.

In her PhD project, Mariëlle focuses on including prior knowledge in statistical analyses (informative Bayesian research) and confronting prior knowledge with new data.

Mariëlle is part of the Consortium on Individual Development (CID). The CID is funded through the Gravitation program of the Dutch ministry of Education, Culture, and Science and the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO Gravitation 024-001-003).