Americas Program Staff

Ver esta página en español >
 

Dr. Jennifer McCoy, Director
Jennifer McCoy is the director of the Carter Center's Americas Program since 1998 and professor of political science at Georgia State University since 1984. From 1988-98, she also served as senior research associate at The Carter Center.  Among her responsibilities as the director of the Americas Program, she leads the Carter Center's Friends of the Inter-American Democratic Charter group and previously directed the Carter Center's project on mediation and monitoring in Venezuela from 2002-04.  She has directed election monitoring missions for The Carter Center in Bolivia, Nicaragua, Panama, Mexico, Venezuela, Jamaica, and Peru and has participated in election delegations to Indonesia, Haiti, Suriname, and Guyana. Dr. McCoy's academic career has included extensive fieldwork in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and in Uruguay, where she conducted research as a Fulbright fellow in 1991 and 1992. A specialist on democratization, international collective protection and promotion of democracy, electoral processes, and Latin American politics, Dr. McCoy's most recent book is "International Mediation in Venezuela"(with Francisco Diez, 2011). She is also editor and contributor to "The Unraveling of Representative Democracy in Venezuela" (with David Myers, 2004), "Do Politicians Learn from Political Crises?" (2000), and "Venezuelan Democracy Under Stress" (1995).

Laura Neuman, Associate Director
Laura Neuman is manager of the Carter Center's Access to Information Project and associate director of the Americas Program. She directs and implements Carter Center transparency projects, including initiatives in Latin America, Africa, and China. She most recently organized and managed the International Conference on the Right to Public Information, convening more than 125 participants from 40 countries and the follow-up Americas Conference and African Regional Conference on the Right of Access to Information. Ms. Neuman has edited six widely distributed guidebooks on fostering transparency and preventing corruption and has presented at numerous international seminars relating to access to information legislation and implementation. Ms. Neuman served as a member of the Initiative for Policy Dialogue Task Force on Transparency; a board member of the Center for Transparency and Access to Information Studies, Mexico; and as a consultant to the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, and a number of governments and is an international associate of the Open Democracy Advice Center, South Africa.  Prior to joining The Carter Center in August 1999, she was staff attorney for Legal Action of Wisconsin and is a 1993 graduate of the University of Wisconsin Law School.

Marcelo Varela-Erasheva, Associate Director
Marcelo Varela- Erasheva is the associate director for the Americas Program. He assists with strategic direction, policy formation, development strategy, and management of the program, including budget, fundraising, and public relations. More generally, he serves as deputy director for overall program management, including both Carter Center institutional functions and with external clients. He is also a visiting scholar at the Latin American Caribbean Studies at Emory University. Mr. Varela-Erasheva was previously adviser and international cooperation project manager to electoral management bodies of Latin America and several international organizations and civil society organizations such as the United Nations Development Program, the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the Organization of American States, the Inter-American Development Bank, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, the Open Society Institute, and the World Bank.

He has experience in designing, coordinating, and managing international cooperation programs on democratization, development, national dialogue initiatives, human rights, electoral processes, civil society, police, and military. He has also acquired extensive experience in negotiating and managing international cooperation financial resources. Mr. Varela-Erasheva holds a masters degree in European- Latin American relations from the University of Bradford, England. He also holds an MBA from the Universidad Europea de Madrid in Spain and the Universidad Interamericana in Costa Rica.

Karin Andersson, Senior Program Associate
Karin Andersson is senior program associate for the Carter Center's Americas Program.  As a Swedish national who has worked in Europe, Latin America, Central Asia, and the United States with multilateral organizations and nongovernmental organizations, mostly in the field of conflict prevention, she has extensive project management experience, most recently from the United Nations Development Program, Kyrgyzstan, Central Asia, where she was a project manager for a participatory process to analyze root obstacles to peace at local and national levels. She has worked extensively on issues related to U.N. reform and interagency coordination within the U.N. She has also worked intimately on issues related to national public policy to strengthen binational border integration, national development strategies for conflict prevention, and local development plans. Ms. Andersson holds a master's degree in political science and a bachelor's degree in development studies from the University of Lund, Sweden, and did her field work for her master's thesis in Guatemala on women's empowerment and property rights.

Kari Mackey, Program Associate
Kari Mackey is the program associate for the access to information project of the Carter Center's Americas Program.  She provides logistical and administrative support to the project's various country missions and international initiatives. Prior to joining the Carter Center staff, she interned for the Carter Center's Americas Program in the spring of 2007, when she completed research on a number of issues related to the right of access to information.  Ms. Mackey is currently working on her thesis for her master's degree in political science with a concentration in international relations and comparative politics at Georgia State University (GSU).  She graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in political science from GSU with numerous awards, including best paper for her presentation of the paper "Democracy and Human Rights" at the 2007 Georgia State Political Science Research Conference.  Previously, she worked for four years as an assistant project manager for Sherwood & Associates Inc.

Ana María Rueda, Program Assistant
Ana María Rueda joined The Carter Center in August 2009, after graduating from the Georgia Institute of Technology with a Master of Science in international affairs. She has worked on various projects during her time at The Carter Center, including the Andean-U.S. Dialogue Forum, the Friends of the Inter-American Charter, and the Bolivia election observation mission in 2009. Previously, she worked as a program assistant for the disaster response office at Habitat for Humanity and as a research assistant at Control Risks in Bogotá, Colombia.  She earned Bachelor of Arts degrees in journalism and political science at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, Colombia. Throughout her studies, she conducted research on illegal drug production and policy in Colombia.

Sarah Lovatt, Assistant Project Coordinator
Sarah Lovatt is the assistant project coordinator for the access to information project. After graduating from Vanderbilt University with a dual degree in political science and Spanish, she spent one year teaching English in Vera, Spain, and two years teaching English in Roswell, Ga.  Sarah began working at The Carter Center in October 2011. She assists in the general administration of the project.