She was educated in philosophy at the Lomonosov University in Moscow from 1952 to 1957 and was awarded her master's degree in Poland in 1957.
[4] She was a member of the “Budapest School” of Marxism,[1] along with other philosophers and sociologists such as Ágnes Heller, György Márkus, István Mészáros, Ferenc Fehér and Mihály Vajda.
[5] Márkus, along with other members of the School, lost her academic position on ideological and political grounds.
[1][3] She moved to Australia in 1978 and worked as a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of New South Wales.
[3] Equally important in her work, but also in the broader work of the Budapest School and their interest in the idea of needs, was Maria Markus' idea of the 'politicisation of needs' within the School's broader framework of radical democracy.