María Marta Ferreyra is a senior economist at the Global Engagement and Knowledge unit of the Education Global Practice of the World Bank. Previously she was a senior economist at the Office of the Chief Economist for Latin America and the Caribbean.

Her research specializes in the Economics of Education. She is the lead author of At a Crossroads: Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean and The Fast Track to New Skills: Short-Cycle Higher Education Programs in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the co-lead author of Raising the Bar for Productive Cities in Latin America and the Caribbean. She has conducted research on school choice, accountability and finance in primary and secondary education in the United States (US); child care markets in the US; higher education in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC); and cities in LAC. Her research has been published in journals such as the American Economic Review, the Journal of Public Economics, and the American Economic Journal-Economic Policy.

Prior to joining the World Bank, she served as a faculty member at the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University. She holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.