Rebecca Winthrop, a Senior Fellow and Director of the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution, works to promote equitable learning issues for young people in developing countries. She advises governments, foundations, and corporations on education and development issues, and provides guidance to a number of important education policy actors, including the UN and World Bank.Prior to joining Brookings in June 2009, Dr. Winthrop spent 15 years working in the field of education for displaced and migrant communities, most recently as the head of education for the International Rescue Committee. There she was responsible for the organizations' education work in over 20 conflict-affect countries. She has been actively involved in developing global policy for the education in emergencies field, especially around the development of global minimum standards for education in emergencies, the United Nations humanitarian reform process for education, and the evidence base for understanding education's role in fomenting or mitigating conflict.She has served on the Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE) Steering Committee, Working Group on Education and Fragility, Working Group on Minimum Standards, and Teacher Training Task Team, as well as the UN Inter-Agency Standing Committee's Education Cluster Advisory Committee, and the UNHCR's Safe Learning Environment advisory group. She has traveled widely in countries affected by armed conflict and has worked with a number of other civil society and UN agencies. She has field experience in a wide variety of contexts, including Afghanistan, Costa Rica, Croatia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Kosovo, Liberia, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Sudan, and Uganda.