María Victoria Llorente is the Executive Director of Fundación Ideas para la Paz and interim Coordinator for the organization’s Security and Defense Studies Area. She earned a political science degree from the Universidad de Los Andes and is a specialist in crime and violence issues, national and citizen security policies, and police reform. Before joining Fundación Ideas para la Paz in 2007, Ms. Llorente worked as an associate researcher of the Centro de Estudios sobre Desarrollo Económico (CEDE, Center for Studies on Economic Development) at the Universidad de Los Andes from 1998 to 2006, where she coordinated the Public Peace Studies Group, which conducted multiple research projects on violence, security and justice in Colombia. Ms. Llorente has also worked as a consultant for the Inter-American Development Bank, the United Nations O ice on Drugs and Crime, the Colombian National Police Force and the O ice of the Mayor of Bogotá on several projects related to citizen security policies, prevention of juvenile delinquency, and police reform. From 1990 to 1994, she worked as an adviser for the Presidential Council for Defense and National Security and for the Ministry of National Defense on the design of citizen security policies and police reform in Colombia. Ms. Llorente has written extensively on these topics and has co-written several books, including Reconocer la guerra para construir la paz (Norma 1999), Caracterización de la violencia homicida en Bogotá (Alcaldía de Bogotá 2002) and Violencia en las familias colombianas: costos socioeconómicos, causas y efectos (BID-DNP-CEDE, 2004).