Ileana Marin is a program officer for democracy around the globe. She has been affiliated in one capacity or another with Kettering since 1997, after having previously participated in international workshops and conferences held by Kettering between 1994 and 1996. Over the years, her responsibilities have included coordinating the international fellows program and multinational research exchanges and contributing to the foundation’s work conducted both nationally and internationally on matters related to civil society, democracy, forms of dialogue and deliberation, community-building, and civic engagement. She has also worked on the development of new lines of research on environmental studies and notions of leadership. Marin has been the ongoing liaison and contributor to research exchanges with the Antonio Núñez Jiménez Foundation for Nature and Humanity in Cuba and the Arab Network for the Study of Democracy.

In 2003, Marin was program manager and director for a Romania-based program, Romanian-American Sustainable Partnerships, developed by US World Learning for International Development. In 2004 and 2005, she served as program officer for another World Learning for International Development program, ChildNet, which was a child welfare reform project in Romania.

Marin holds an MA in Romanian and Hungarian linguistics and literatures, University of Bucharest, Romania, and Janus Pannonius University, Pécs, Hungary, and an MA in ethnic and minority studies, ELTE Institute of Sociology, Budapest, Hungary. She also earned an MA in human and organizational systems from Fielding Graduate University, Santa Barbara, CA, where she is an ABD in human and organizational development. She has published articles and books in Romanian, English, and Spanish.