Mariza Cooray was a Research Fellow and senior economist in the Lowy Institute's Indo-Pacific Development Centre. She has a decade of experience living and working in the Pacific and Indonesia for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, USAID and the Asian Development Bank. She has also worked as a Country Economist for the World Bank in Sri Lanka and began her career in international development in Sri Lanka. Her research interests include public finance, debt management and crisis, poverty and inequality, growth and emerging markets.

Mariza has postgraduate qualifications in Mathematics from the Australian National University, a Master of Science in Development Economics from the London School of Economics where she was an LSE PJD Wiles Scholar, and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Wilson College in Pennsylvania in the United States. She speaks Sinhalese and Spanish and understands Mandarin.