Mariana Funes FRSA, PhD, MSc, BA Psych

I am an experienced cognitive coach and chartered research psychologist with a background in artificial intelligence research and business psychology.

I teach in higher education with a focus on self-managed learning pedagogies. I have been facilitating self-managed learning sets for over 20 years. As a business psychologist I coach individuals and top teams through transition and post-conventional thinking.

The skilful use of technology is a foundational element in my approach. I see the development of an intentional relationship with technology and quality dialogue skills as essential for collaborative teamwork. I also run a remote coaching and teaching practice that enables me to work flexibly and cost effectively with busy clients and students.

We share all the roads and we finally see that none of them matter. We see the meaning of all the roads, and therefore we come to ‘no road’. Underneath, all the roads are the same because of the very fact that they are ‘roads’ – they are rigid
–David Bohm

What I do

  • I Teach.
    I live life as inquiry and do my best to embody this metacognitive skill in my teaching. I learn openly online, and use this visible learning in my teaching to enact what I describe to students about the process of learning with its magic, risks and vulnerabilities. As adjunct professor on an MA in Mindfulness Studies my focus was on Mindful Communication through Insight Dialogue and other dialogical approaches to communication online. Currently, as a learning technologist at the University of the Highlands and Islands my attention has moved to supporting the development of students’ digital capabilities.
  • I Coach.
    The ethos of my work values the integrity of the individual and holds deep trust in the transforming nature of present moment awareness – body, speech, and mind. I work with clients under the assumption that the coaching relationship is a joint praxis. My aim as a coach is not to change the client’s experience, but to help them sense how they relate to that experience; I believe this makes it possible to move through life with greater ease.
  • I Write.
    I have a passion for writing as a craft. I see beauty in a well crafted sentence even in boring academic writing! I write papers and books as a researcher, I write articles and blog posts as a teacher, and I write reflections as a learner. In my writing, I note what is not being said in a group or in a domain and write to bring that out in the open; challenging conventional wisdom and always writing from the ‘wrong side’. I critique what I love as a discipline of thinking.

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