Marcelo completed his undergraduate studies in Brazil, during which collaborated with the preparation of a catalogue of the Scientific Collection of Macrofossils of the Federal University of Pernambuco and the geological mapping of Pacatuba, a city located in the state of Sergipe, Brazil.
During his Masters, he studied samples from the Sergipe-Alagoas Basin, preparing slides in order to analyze the content of calcareous nannofossil, investigate the biostratigraphic framework and make palaeobathymetric inferences.