Rachel Unkovic

Rachel Unkovic joined InterAction as NGO Coordination Advisor in late December 2018. She is an expert in humanitarian aid with over twelve years of experience both implementing and supporting projects in crisis contexts. She is known to think creatively about complex coordination.

Prior to joining InterAction, Rachel was Associate Director for Special Projects at the International Rescue Committee (IRC), where she led a variety of different projects focused on developing and improving processes, executing events, defining corporate culture and communicating internally. Rachel previously was a standing member of the IRC’s Emergency Response Team with deployments to Yemen (2012), Syria (2013), Sierra Leone (2014; ebola), and elsewhere. She spent three years living in Iraq with travel between Erbil and Baghdad, and one year living in the DRC. In 2008, Rachel was a Child Protection Research Associate for World Learning, where she co-authored a needs assessment of vulnerable and exploited children in the Kitgum district of northern Uganda. Prior to that, she worked with Tostan in Senegal and the Gambia.

Rachel has degrees in English from Trinity College, Conflict Transformation from SIT Graduate Institute, and Oral History from Columbia University. She currently resides in Northwest D.C. with her one-eyed senior cat named Scarlett, whom she found three years ago wandering the mean streets of New Jersey.