As director of the Civic Education & Engagement Initiative for the University of Maryland College of Education, Lena Morreale Scott leads several collaborative efforts to empower young people to engage fully in their civic life. Scott co-chairs the Maryland Civic Education Coalition, a cross-partisan group of more than 45 civic organizations and 175 students, teachers, district-level coordinators, university scholars, and community members from across the state, dedicated to ensuring equitable access to meaningful, comprehensive civic education and service-learning. Scott also leads the Maryland Democracy Initiative (MDI), which leverages the expertise of students and colleagues from universities’ schools of public policy and colleges of journalism, behavior and social sciences, and education. MDI empowers innovative, interdisciplinary, community-centered research, teaching, learning, and civic engagement to prepare students for informed, lifelong civic involvement to strengthen our shared democracy. Scott is a graduate of Northwestern University and the Harvard Graduate School of Education.