Ms. Mariyam Neerish is a Senior Lecturer (social work) and Head of Department of Behavioural Sciences at the Faculty of Health Sciences, The Maldives National University. Neerish has over 12 years of technical experience in developing practitioners for social work service in the Maldives. She has extensive experience working closely with communities to identify issues prevalent among vulnerable groups and designing interventions to address those issues.

She has a Bachelor of Arts (First Class) from University of Pune and Master of Social Work from The University of Western Australia. In addition, she also has a Postgraduate Diploma in Research Studies from Villa College.

She has also conducted research in social areas, ranging from challenges faced by social workers to exploring issues related to substance abuse. She is currently the principal investigator of a research on, ‘Wellbeing of Correctional Officers in the Maldives’, which is instrumental in making occupational reforms to the correctional sector. She has worked in a team on two Small Grant Schemes provided by the Australian Government for Australia Awards Alumni to implement a community awareness advocacy project, ‘Building resilient communities to address child abuse and gender-based violence’ in Laamu Atoll in 2022 and ‘Capacity building of teachers on occupational therapy’ in Lh. Naifaru and Male’ in 2023.