Mary Anne is a professor with more than 29 years   of experience in the Hotel, Restaurant and Institution Management Department at the College of Home Economics, University of the Philippines Diliman. She earned her research doctoral degree from the University of Waikato in New Zealand. For her doctoral thesis, she immersed herself in the rich historical and cultural landscapes of Hongcun, Xidi, and Nanping Villages in Anhui Province, China, near the iconic Huangshan Mountain. Over six months, she lived in these villages to examine the impacts of tourism on both residents and visitors in UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

In 2017, Mary Anne joined a research team establishing the Raglan Monitoring Center, New Zealand's first tourism monitoring observatory. This center addressed tourism issues affecting the local environment, including those concerning Maori communities. After returning from New Zealand in 2018, she initiated a project with a team of experts from the University of the Philippines to study long-term sustainability in the Batanes Islands. On June 16, 2023, Batanes achieved a significant milestone by becoming the first destination in the Philippines to join the United Nations World Tourism Organization - International Network of Sustainable Tourism Observatories (UNWTO-INSTO).  

Through funding support from the UP Open Grant and the National Research Council of the Philippines (NRCP)–Department of Science and Technology (DOST), she initiated research on the core issues of resident satisfaction, social carrying capacity, and food security. The findings from these studies paved the way for various research initiatives and collaborative projects aimed at helping the Batanes address these long-standing concerns and support evidence-based tourism and hospitality development planning. Mary Anne dreams that other destinations in the Philippines will someday join INSTO, not only to attract travelers across the globe, but to advance sustainable and resilient tourism worldwide.