After growing up in Alsace, France, Maya earned her BA in English at King’s College London. During her BA, she spent a semester studying abroad at UC Berkeley, where she majored in Philosophy. She then went on to study French and German literature at the University of Cambridge, earning an MPhil, before concentrating on German and Comparative Literature at the University of Bonn and the University of St Andrews where she earned a joint MA/MLitt. Her research centers around the long 19th century, with a particular emphasis on the Sattelzeit, and is at the intersection of historical discourse, ecocriticism and affect studies. Her current research examines the concept of the atmosphere in literature around 1800 as questioning boundaries between humans, non-humans and their environments. She is a James B. Duke Fellow.