Isabella Palacios is a project assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center, where she contributes to the center’s work on Central America and Colombia. Throughout her time at the Council, she has provided critical support to initiatives aimed at driving economic development and investment attraction in Central America. Palacios also supports the US-Colombia Advisory Group’s efforts to advance key pillars of the bilateral relationship, including economic and security cooperation, and has contributed to the center’s work on the Summit of the Americas.

Prior to her time at the Atlantic Council, Palacios was a research assistant at the University of Notre Dame’s Pulte Institute for Global Development, where she worked on the US Agency for International Development’s Private Sector Engagement Evidence Gap Map. In this role, she systematically analyzed and coded academic literature, gray literature, and private-sector reports to assess the impact of private capital in addressing global challenges, including poverty alleviation, disaster response, and the expansion of access to social services such as education and healthcare. She also contributed to research evaluating the effectiveness of the US Department of State’s Gang Resistance Education and Training (GREAT) program in El Salvador, Honduras, and Panama. Originally from El Salvador, Palacios holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Notre Dame, where she majored in econometrics and quantitative economics and global affairs.