Dr. Marieta Bañez Sumagaysay is Professor 12 in Economics at the University of the Philippines Tacloban College where she graduated magna cum laude with the degree Bachelor of Arts in Social Sciences (Economics). She was College Dean from 2000 – 2006 and the Director of the Leyte-Samar Heritage Center from 2010-2013. From 2015 to 2022, she was seconded as the Executive Director of the National Research Council of the Philippines, Department of Science and Technology.
Dr. Sumagaysay finished degrees in Master of Arts in Economics, in Master of Management in Business Management, and PhD in Social Science Research. Her researches, publications, paper/poster presentations in conferences, and extension work revolve around gender, women and work in coastal fishing and aquaculture; resilience and adaptive capacities; work-from-home; and gendered value chain analysis of various economic sectors. Her advocacies are expanding women’s access to economic resources, and on engendering fishing and aquaculture, tourism, as well as science and technology.
She has held various positions in professional organizations: Chair, Asian Fisheries Social Science Research Network (AFSSRN, 2021-2024); Councilor, 12th Council of the Asian Fisheries Society (AFS, 2017); founding member of the Gender in Aquaculture and Fisheries Section (GAFS); President, National Network on Women in Fisheries in the Philippines (WINFISH, 2014-2016); convenor, WINFISH chapters in Eastern Visayas and in SOCCSKSARGEN; Board Member, Women’s Studies Association of the Philippines (WSAP). She is a certified member of the National Gender Resource Pool of the Philippine Commission on Women (PCW), an Alumna of the Schloss Leopoldskron Seminars in Austria, and a member of the Pi Gamma Mu International Honor Society, Alpha Chapter.