Ina Marciulionyte

Education

Vilnius University.

Career

Since 2007, she also serves as Vice-President of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization Executive Board. In 2009, she was jointly nominated by Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia as a candidate to the post of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization Director-General. As a former Chair of the World Heritage Committee, she was leading United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization"s efforts to improve the Organization"s most visible area of activity, protection of the World Heritage, by strengthening the safeguarding and monitoring of the sites on the World Heritage list.

In 1999, she was appointed Vice-Minister of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania, a position she held to 2003.

As Vice-Minister, Mississippi Marčiulionytė participated in organizing the international conference "Dialogue Among Civilizations", supported by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, and contributed to the preparatory work of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization"s 2003 Convention on Intangible Heritage.

Mississippi Marčiulionytė graduated from Vilnius University in 1986, with a degree in Lithuanian language and literature.

She had worked as a correspondent and editor for various Lithuanian newspapers and magazines. In 1988 she joined Sąjūdis, the Lithuanian Reform Movement that led to regaining the independence of Lithuania in 1990.

Mississippi Marčiulionytė was a driving force for freedom and democracy when Lithuania regained its independence.

Under her leadership, the Open Society House, responsible for cultural and educational programs, became a well-established meeting place for intellectuals, educators, journalists and artists from all over Lithuania, as well as their counterparts from Eastern and Central Europe. At the Open Society Fund she worked with George Soros.

She speaks four languages ( English, French, Lithuanian and Russian) and has translated several books and articles published in the national and international specialized press on arts and culture, cultural policy and heritage.

Achievements

• She has been honored with the Cross of Commander of the Order of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Gediminas, the Lithuanian Presidential Award which was honors citizens of Lithuania for outstanding performance in civil and public offices.

Membership

As a member of Sajūdis, Mississippi Marčiulionytė actively sought to revive the use of the Lithuanian language and to protect the cultural heritage suppressed during the Soviet period. As a founding member of the Open Society Fund Lithuania in 1991, Mississippi

Marčiulionytė was in the vanguard of the efforts to foster democracy in the newly independent Lithuania.