Amaris is a Senior Program Officer II providing administrative and backstopping support for the Global Solutions Sustainability Challenge, World Smarts Changemakers, and World Smarts STEM Challenge programs.

In this role, she provides leadership of programmatic and curricular planning, budgetary oversight, monitoring and evaluation, and partnership management for virtual exchange programs supporting K-12 to higher education students and educators in Ghana, Guatemala, Jordan, Iraq and the United States.

Prior to joining IREX, Amaris worked as the global program specialist at DC Public Schools where she designed and implemented global education programs and pioneered the district’s first virtual Global Leadership Summit in 2021. She has also served as a program officer for the U.S. Department of State’s Youth Ambassadors Program and has supported educational and cultural programing through past roles at World Learning, WorldTeach, LEAP Africa and UN Women. Her formative experiences living, studying, and working in Ecuador, Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, and the U.S. strongly influence her work in the field.

She holds an MA in international educational development from Teachers College, Columbia University, and a BSc in education from Ohio University.