Cindy joined the Atlantic Council in January 2008 after working as a consultant on the Cuba program at the National Democratic Institute (NDI), where she strengthened international outreach for a leading opposition movement in Cuba and had been charged with program management for an NDI subgrantee in Miami. She has also worked on foreign policy at the Office of Senator Edward M. Kennedy. In 2005, Cindy received an MA in Comparative Ethnic Conflict from Queens University Belfast, where she was a George J. Mitchell Scholar. She holds a BA from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School and has studied at Central European University in Budapest. Her interest in transitional and deeply-divided societies was initially sparked by her experiences teaching Roma children in Romania and interning with the Project on Ethnic Relations in New Jersey. Born in Puerto Rico, she is a native Spanish speaker and is fluent in Italian.