Mariela Gaete-Reyes is an Architect (National University of Colombia), holds a Master’s degree in Urban Development (Pontifical Catholic University of Chile), and a Ph.D. in Geography (King’s College London, UK).
After completing her doctoral studies on disability and accessibility, Mariela worked as a postdoctoral researcher on Dementia Friendly Environments at Bournemouth University, UK. Since returning to Chile in 2014, she has worked as an academic at the Housing Institute of the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, University of Chile, and has been the principal investigator/director of several projects on disability and accessibility, two funded by ANID, one by the University of Chile, and one FONDART.
Additionally, she has been a co-investigator on four related projects. She is a member of the Universal Accessibility Working Group of the DTPM of the Ministry of Transport and Telecommunications of Chile. She won the 1st Research Prize at the ARQUISUR 2023 Congress with her work “Inaccessibility as a determining factor in the housing well-being of people with disabilities living in social housing in Chile.” In 2023, she also won, along with two co-authors, the Rector Juvenal Hernández Jaque Fund of the University of Chile, to publish a book on design recommendations for an accessible residential habitat with the Editorial Universitaria (in press), based on research results.