Dr. Marisa Farrugia is currently the Ambassador of the Republic of Malta to the Republic of Türkiye.  She presented her credentials to His Excellency Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, President of the Republic of Türkiye on 19^th March 2025.

From September 2021 to January 2025 Marisa Farrugia was appointed Ambassador of Malta to the Republic of Poland.

Prior to her Ambassadorial post in Warsaw, she served as the Deputy Secretary General of the Union for the Mediterranean in Barcelona and was in charge for Social and Civil Affairs from September 2019 to August 2021 with the unanimous approval of all the member countries. Before becoming the Deputy Secretary General, Dr Farrugia was appointed by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Malta as Special Envoy to the Union for the Mediterranean and served in this role from July 2017 to August 2019.  As Special Envoy, she was responsible for Global issues and other sectors mainly the 5+5 Dialogue and the tourism dossiers.

While in Malta at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Marisa Farrugia was Head of Unit for the MENA region, and subsequently Deputy Director at the Directorate for External Relations and Mediterranean Affairs from 2014 to mid-2017.

In 2012, she was posted at the Embassy of Malta in Tripoli. In the early eighties, she served at the Foreign Office as junior Desk Officer.

Throughout her career Dr. Farrugia was a visiting lecturer at the University of Malta for more than sixteen years at the Faculty of Arts and the Mediterranean Institute.

Marisa Farrugia holds a Ph.D. in Arabic and Near Eastern Studies from the University of Leeds, a Master’s degree from the University of Toronto, Canada, majoring in international relations and the socio-political aspects of the Arab world, and a Bachelor of Education from the University of Malta majoring in Arabic studies.

Among her publications one finds two monographs: one in the Maltese language about the history of the Maltese Alphabets. The book is entitled L-Istorja tal-Alfabett Malti, No. 62, Kullana Kulturali Series, Malta, 2004; and The Plight of Women in Egyptian Cinema (1940s-1960s), University of Leeds, United Kingdom, 2002, which also deals with the socio-political aspects of the era.

Besides her mother tongue Maltese, she speaks English, Arabic, French and Italian and has working knowledge of Spanish and Polish.

Ambassador Farrugia is married to George and has a son.  She is passionate about Mediterranean and English literature, comparative linguistics, history, and the visual arts.