Maria Carnovale studies under what conditions technology maximizes well-being without negatively impacting individuals and communities and how policies can foster this process. She has written about the social and ethical implications of digital platforms, digital contact tracing, and more recently smart sanitation, among other topics.

An economist by training, after receiving her PhD in Public Policy from Duke University in 2019, she joined the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) first as a postdoctoral fellow and later as an adjunct lecturer. In 2020, she was a Lead Policy Analyst at the Duke Initiative for Science and Society, before joining the Harvard Kennedy School as a Technology and Human Rights Fellow. Since 2021, she served as Vice President at the Institute for Technology and Global Health where she led the communications team, as a Visiting Associate at the Pulte Institute for Global Development at the University of Notre Dame, as Senior Policy Analyst at Katametron, a non-profit based in Geneva, and she coordinated stakeholder engagement at NxtWork, a non-profit aimed at empowering minority women in the corporate world. An avid writer, her work has been published on Slate, Issues and Zocalo, among other publications.