Maria joined SID-US as a program associate in August 2024. She is a senior in Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, where she is studying migration and international development. As a Colombian immigrant to the United States, her multicultural upbringing and close ties to Latin America have inspired her passion for international relations and socio-economic development.
At Georgetown, she serves as the co-president of Por Colombia and is a research assistant for the Insititute for the Study on International Migration. Passionate about education equity and access, she volunteers as a mentor for the Hispanic Scholarship Fund's Youth Leadership Institute and the School of Foreign Service's Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, doing outreach to high schoolers from underrepresented backgrounds in higher education. She has interned at USAID, conducting independent research for the Land and Resource Governance Division in the Bureau of Development, Democracy & Innovation. Maria aspires to pursue a career within the development field, where she has interests in approaching development through community-led initiatives
Outside of the office and the classroom, Maria loves to cook, travel, and read. She recently studied abroad in Morocco, where she volunteered to help families impacted by the 2023 earthquake and interned at the Organization Pan-Africaine de la Lutte Contre le SIDA. Maria's diverse experiences, commitment to social impact, and multicultural background offer a unique perspective to her role as a program associate and position her to make meaningful contributions to the field of international development.