Dr. Aini Marina is an educational psychologist at Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) specializing in learning sciences, executive functioning, and socio-emotional learning. She was awarded Best Overall Graduate for her Bachelor's in TESL at UPM and completed her graduate and postdoctoral training in Cognitive Science of Teaching and Learning at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Her research focuses on cognitive performance and designing interventions to strengthen executive functioning and SEL skills, especially for neurodiverse and underserved learners. She trains educators locally and internationally in heutagogical tools for digital natives and has extensive experience in developing and managing online courses, including Malaysia's Future Classroom initiatives. Her innovative teaching earned her the Vice-Chancellor Fellowship Award from His Royal Highness Sultan of Selangor in 2018.

She is a research associate at the Institute for Research and Poverty Management (InsPeK) at Universiti Malaysia Kelantan and leads the Psych.Ed Lab at UPM, providing training and services in psychoeducational assessment and educational neuroscience. She also contributes to national higher education policy at the Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia, developing transdisciplinary academic programs and experiential learning. As an educational psychologist, she supports the Selangor State Education Department in screening children with learning difficulties for special needs programs.

Dr. Marina co-founded the Media Education For All (ME4A) movement, developing Malaysia's first media literacy curriculum to address information disorder. She consults for agencies including UNESCO-MGIEP and UNESCO-ICHEI, focusing on SDG 4.7 through programs that promote SEL, digital pedagogies, and youth empowerment.

In 2024–2025, she was a research fellow at the Center for Research on Complex Thinking, University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she advanced her work in quantitative ethnography and epistemic network analysis. Her current focus is on modeling learning processes related to SEL, executive function, and inclusive education, with active collaborations across the global QE research community.