Staff

Laura Cristina Dib is the Venezuela Program Director at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA). Before joining WOLA, Laura was the Director of the Legal Clinic for Migrants and a member of the Migration Studies Center at the University of the Andes in Bogotá, Colombia. There she worked on the defense of migrants and refugee rights through the design of litigation strategies and advocacy efforts. Her areas of interest and experience are transitional justice, migration, and human rights.

Bessie Rivera (she/her) is the Finance and Operations Coordinator at WOLA, where she supports the Vice President of Finance and Operations with day-to-day bookkeeping, office management and supports the tech and administrative needs for the entire organization.

Lily Sweeting (she/her) is the External Relations Associate at WOLA, where she supports the Communications and Development teams across various functions, including content management, production, editing, media relations, and translation.

Joe Eldridge, the Executive Director of WOLA in its early years from 1974 to 1986, returns to the organization as a Senior Fellow after nearly 20 years as the University Chaplain and director of the Kay Spiritual Life Center at American University (AU).

Coletta Youngers is a Senior Fellow and leads WOLA’s women and incarceration project, which seeks to dramatically reduce the number of women in prison in Latin America and promote gender-sensitive drug policy reforms. She served for many years as a consultant with WOLA’s drug policy reform project and also participates on behalf of WOLA in the Research Consortium on Drugs and the Law (CEDD).

Kathy Gille advises WOLA’s staff on communications strategy, helping to ensure that WOLA’s expertise in policy analysis and advocacy connects with key audiences in Washington and elsewhere.

Jo-Marie Burt is a senior fellow at WOLA specializing in Peru. She teaches political science at George Mason University, where she is currently acting co-director of the Center for Global Studies. Her research focuses on political violence and state power, human rights and transitional justice, and social movements in Latin America.