Maria joined the IYF team as a program coordinator for the Youth:Work Jordan project in January 2010.  Maria brings to IYF a keen interest in Middle East affairs and a passion for working with young people.  She has lived and worked in Egypt where she served as a tutor and in-house mentor for orphaned girls in the coastal governorate of Beheira and worked as an intern at Catholic Relief Services where she supported youth tolerance programs among poor, working class youth in Cairo and Alexandria.   Maria has also worked as a project assistant for the Middle East bureau developing civic education materials at the National Democratic Institute and as an intern with the Millennium Challenge Corporation. Maria received a BA Johns Hopkins University and an MA in International Economics and Middle East Studies from the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins.  She is fluent in Arabic.