Gabriela is a cultural anthropologist with expertise in environmental and social safeguard policies, environmental and social risk management in development finance, and involuntary resettlement. She joins CAO from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) where she was Director of Policy for the Northern Triangle Task Force and Senior Environmental and Social Analyst for the Office of Environmental and Social Risk Management since 2020. Gabriela was responsible for leading field-based assessments of multilateral development bank (MDB) operations with high environmental and social risks in order to provide evidence-based recommendations to MDBs to avoid, minimize, and mitigate adverse impacts of operations and achieve compliance with environmental and social safeguards policies. She also provided technical, policy, and strategic advice to USAID leadership, and served as a senior representative for USAID in engagements with public sector, private sector, and civil society stakeholders. Prior to USAID, Gabriela served as Advisor to the U.S. Executive Director at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), where she led the U.S. government’s negotiations during the modernization of IDB’s environmental and social safeguards policy and led engagement with IDB’s Independent Consultation and Investigation Mechanism. An American national, Gabriela was previously a Foreign Affairs Officer at the U.S. Department of State, where she led the agency’s environmental and social safeguards portfolio. Gabriela has worked as an independent environmental anthropologist and was visiting professor at the University of Louisville, Kentucky from 2014 to 2016. Gabriela holds a Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Florida.