Helena is a Polish-American from Rockville, Maryland. She studied economics at Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont. While at Middlebury, she studied abroad twice in Jordan – first through the State Department’s Critical Language Scholarship program, and then through the Middlebury School in Amman. Upon graduating, she received a Center for Arabic Study Abroad fellowship to study advanced Arabic for a year in Amman. After a short stint stateside working with the Knowledge Management team of a USAID implementing partner based in Washington, D.C., she returned yet again to Amman, this time joining a USAID-funded water activity as its research, monitoring and evaluation coordinator. Prior to Princeton, Helena worked as a research analyst at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., in the Global Economy and Development research program. This past summer, she interned with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Helena is passionate about community-driven development in the Arab world, and she loves studying languages, baking, going for long walks, and spending time with family and friends.