Dr. Ella Meilianda was born in Banda Aceh on May 30th, 1975. She graduated her Bachelor degree in Civil Engineering from Syiah Kuala University in Banda Aceh in 1999, and subsequently continued to finish her Master Degree in Coastal Engineering in the Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia in 2001. In April 2004, she started her PhD study in the Water Engineering and Management Department of the University of Twente in Enschede, The Netherlands. The initial topic of the research was related to the integrated coastal zone management which case study taken for the Banda Aceh coast. After the tsunami event in December 2004 has significantly changed the coastal area due to severe destruction by the tsunami waves, she decided to adapt her research topic into understanding the morphological development of the tectono-tsunami-affected coasts which took the same study location. She earned her PhD in coastal morphology later in June 2009. She had an opportunity to pursue her career as a coastal scientist by taking a Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2010-2012 in the International Research Training INTERCOAST in the University of Bremen, Germany. The research project has a collaboration with the Waikato University of New Zealand, at which she had an opportunity for a short-term research stay. After having a wealth of International research experiences, she returned to Banda Aceh where she continues her career as a scientist with an extent of management duties in TDMRC along with her regular duty as the teaching staff at the Civil Engineering Department of Syiah Kuala University.