Marilena works as a senior environmental consultant specialising in air quality at Arup. Her day to day responsibilities include managing the air quality work for large infrastructure projects and other related topics, such as carbon and climate. She holds line manager responsibilities and provides training to the rest of the air quality team at Arup.

Marilena has been working on the High Speed 2 (HS2) rail project since 2012, when she joined Arup. She started with undertaking air quality assessments and she is now responsible for creating an air quality strategy for the project and setting emissions requirements for contractors. ​Part of this work was recognised by winning the national air quality award and the project has since been seen as exemplar for air quality considerations. ​

Marilena's career journey has involved obtaining multiple degrees, including a BSc in Geology in Greece, a BSc in Natural Sciences at the University of Reading, a MSc in Applied Meteorology at the University of Reading and a MSc in Environmental Technology at Imperial College London. She has also achieved chartered environmentalist through the IES and she has also been one of the assessors for CEnv charterships over the past few years.

In the next years Marilena aims to progress from a purely air quality role into a wider project management role for environmental assessments of large infrastructure projects. She is also looking into expanding her knowledge on carbon and climate assessments and how these can be integrated with air quality. She would also like to combine academic work and research with her consultant role at some point in the future.