Muriel Mari studied Biochemistry and Cell Biology at the University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis, France. In 2002, she obtained her PhD in Cell Biology and Physiology from the same Institution, in the laboratory of Dr. Yannick Lemarchand-Brustel. The topic of her research was the identification and characterization of new RAB4 effectors and their function in glucose cell uptake. In 2002, she extended her studies in this area by joining as a postdoctoral fellow the laboratory of Prof. David James at the Garvan Institute in Sydney, Australia. There, she investigated the membrane association of the SNARE-regulating protein MUNC18c.

In 2003, Muriel Mari joined the Department of Cell Biology at the University Medical Center Utrecht, the Netherlands, to acquire competencies in advanced electron microscopy methods. There, as a Marie-Curie postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Prof. Hans Geuze, she investigated the intracellular trafficking of lysosomal enzyme receptors in mammalian cells.

In 2006, Muriel Mari joined the group of Prof. Fulvio Reggiori also in Utrecht, for an additional postdoctoral experience and started working on the molecular mechanism of autophagy using yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a model system. In 2015, she was appointed as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Biomedical Sciences of Cells & Systems of the University Medical Center Groningen, the Netherlands, where she studied different aspects of the intracellular trafficking with a special focus on autophagy, using ultrastructural approaches.

Since June 2022, Muriel Mari is an Associate Professor at the Department of Biomedicine of the Aarhus University, Denmark. She is studying autophagosome biogenesis in yeast and mammalian cells at the ultrastructural level using techniques such as high-pressure freezing/freeze substitution, electron microscopy, immuno-electron microscopy, electron tomography and correlative light and electron microscopy.