Maria Amaya, PhD, is the Lead External Advocacy, North America in Quality Policy & Advocacy at Roche. In this position, Maria works within the Roche/Genentech Global External Advocacy community to develop and deliver innovative quality and current GMP regulatory pathways and collaborate with internal and external stakeholders, including support in harmonization and streamlining of regulations. Maria has more than 13 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry working in product development, manufacturing technology, regulatory, and quality, and compliance. Maria holds a PhD in protein chemistry, a Master of Science in protein engineering from the Paris-Sud University in France, and a Bachelor of Science in chemistry from the National University in Colombia.