Maria Colgan is a Distinguished Product Manager at Oracle Corporation, which she has been a part of since version 7.3 was released in 1996, and advocates for Oracle Database, as well as best practices for incorporating the database into company environments. Maria is what some people would call a database nerd, and has spent her entire career deeply involved with enhancing the performance of databases and applications, most notably SQL query tuning. Her personal mission is to help companies attain the flexibility and resilience they need (especially in today’s ever-changing world), by helping them make better use of this incredible technology. She finds great satisfaction in listening to and incorporating their feedback into future product releases. During her downtime, she can be found either in Ireland with friends and family or on Safari in Africa where she gets to indulge in her passion for wildlife photography.