Paloma Dallas is senior program officer for Democracy around the Globe at the Charles F. Kettering Foundation. She leads the foundation’s international work at a time of rising authoritarianism and democratic backsliding, focusing on fostering democratic resilience, countering othering and identity-based attacks, and championing the development of inclusive democratic narratives. 

Dallas joined the foundation as an editor and writer and later became a program officer, where she helped pioneer work at the intersection of arts, culture, and civic life. She went on to lead the foundation’s journalism and democracy initiatives, drawing on her own experience as a journalist to convene innovative reporters from around the world. In 2023, she coedited Reinventing Journalism to Strengthen Democracy, a Kettering Foundation essay collection drawn from this work. 

Before joining the foundation, Dallas was the founding director of Del Pueblo, a community-based nonprofit connecting Spanish- and English-speaking residents in southwestern Ohio. She previously worked as a freelance journalist, a reporter for Reuters in Bogotá, Colombia, and a researcher for the Americas program at the Committee to Protect Journalists. 

She holds a BA in political science and Spanish from Macalester College, a master’s degree in international affairs from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, and a graduate certificate in creative nonfiction from Spalding University. 

Dallas has collaborated with her husband, a visual artist, on multiple exhibitions and interdisciplinary projects, including the raising of their daughter.