Rebecca Bell Meszaros

Rebecca Bell Meszaros is vice president of global programs at IREX. She leads more than 400 professionals globally to ensure innovative development programs translate to meaningful impact. She provides vision, leadership, and organizational direction across four essential areas empowering youth, cultivating leaders, strengthening institutions, and extending access to quality education and information.

Rebecca brings more than 25 years of experience in international education and development. Her work has spanned national-scale higher education reform, educator professional development, workforce development and leadership, youth, and civil society fellowship programs. Under her leadership as associate vice president of IREX’s education programs, she developed career centers that are bridging the gap between higher education institutions and the private sector to improve youth employment outcomes. She also expanded the work in pre-service and in-service teacher professional development to improve student learning outcomes through programs like Fulbright Teacher Exchanges. Rebecca has published opinion pieces on closing the STEM gap and has been interviewed by media outlets including NPR. Rebecca also served as a member of IREX’s 2025 strategic planning team.