Maria Santarelli is the Program Coordinator for Cities4Forests and she works to ensure the timely and successful delivery of projects under the umbrella of the program.

Prior to joining WRI, Maria worked for the European Parliament Office in Washington DC and for the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction in Geneva, where she helped planning and organizing a global conference on disaster risk, adaptation, and management. Originally from Italy, Maria spent most of her life in Europe and worked in Germany, and Hungary. Now, Maria is passionate about issues of socio-economic development of Latin America.

Maria holds a B.A. in Foreign Languages (Spanish and German) and International Relations from the Catholic University of Milan, Italy and a M.A. in International Affairs and Economics from Boston University. In her free time, Maria loves traveling and dancing salsa and bachata with her husband.