Paola was born in Colombia and her native language is Spanish. She earned her undergrad degree at Universidad Autonoma de Colombia in Bogota, Colombia. Her bachelor´s degree was in International Economic Relations. For five years, she has worked for an American multinational company in Bogota. She moved to the USA in 2013 as a part of an exchange program.  Later in 2014, she moved to New York City to formally study English at Hunter College, and in 2015, she decided to earn her masters degree in Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University. Since she started her masters program, she has been a research assistant of the School of Diplomacy, contributing to Latin American political tendencies research and currently contributing to the Basque Country Team activities and individual research about ETA. She is very passionate about conflict resolution since her country endures one of the longest violent conflicts of Latin America, and she wants to learn from the experiences of other regions such as the Basque Country. Paola also visited Cyprus with some of her classmates to learn more about their current conflict and future perspectives.