Helena Murseli serves as Senior Adviser and Lead of the Humanitarian Action and Resilience Pillar within UNICEF’s Education Centre of Excellence based in Amman. In this role, she provides strategic leadership for advancing the global agenda on resilient education systems, supporting countries to prepare for, withstand, and recover from crises while ensuring continuity and quality learning for every child. She oversees a technical portfolio focused on strengthening the evidence base, enhancing system capabilities, and building the institutional resilience required to deliver education in complex and rapidly evolving humanitarian contexts.

Helena leads and coordinates efforts across governments, UNICEF regional and country offices, and a broad network of partners to strengthen risk-informed education planning, enhance emergency preparedness and response, and embed resilience approaches across education systems. Under her leadership, her team advances innovative models and develops global public goods that support the integration of climate, conflict, and crisis-related risks into education sector policies and programmes.

Over the course of her career, Helena has worked across multiple regions, collaborating closely with governments, UN agencies, donors, and civil society partners to drive impactful, system-level changes. She has extensive experience, leading complex education programmes, providing technical guidance on policy and strategy, and supporting national reforms in foundational learning and inclusive education. Her work has been particularly focused on conflict- and crisis-affected settings, including country-based functions in Kosovo,  Central African Republic , the Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, , Afghanistan, Ukraine, Lebanon and Senegal.