Associate professor of economics at Trinity University. Her research focuses on the history of economic thought, specializing in the 18th century. She has widely studied Adam Smith, David Hume, monetary theories, and the Scottish Enlightenment. She also explores the links between the Scottish Enlightenment and the results from behavioral economics, evolutionary biology and neuroeconomics. Maria Pia  is the book review editor for the Journal of the History of Economic Thought and co-edited the Oxford Handbook on Adam Smith.