Mariam received her bachelor’s in Human Biology and master’s in Animal Behavior in Conservation from Hunter College, in her home borough of Manhattan. As part of her master’s thesis and continued employment following its publishing, she worked with various octopus species at Rockefeller University which were studied as a model for abnormal sleep behaviors and behavioral changes as a result of octopus-specific aging known as senescence. Mariam is interested in spending more time learning about both the minutia underwriting the running of a lab, and in the continued research of animal species which may show cognitive processing similar to that of humans.