Ana Rosa Quintana led The Heritage Foundation’s efforts on U.S. policy toward Latin America.

She authored numerous policy studies on Mexico, Central America, Cuba, Colombia, Venezuela and immigration. She also researched the nexus between U.S. national security and women’s economic empowerment in the developing world. She wrote papers and publications for a wide range of outlets. Quintana is a regular contributor on television, radio, podcasts, and other media. She presented at the State Department, other U.S. government agencies and has also testified before the U.S. Congress.

Quintana holds a Master of Arts degree in global affairs and a bachelor’s degree in political science, both from Florida International University, where she also received certificates in National Security, and Latin American and Caribbean studies. She was a scholar in the university’s Jack D. Gordon Institute for Public Policy and Citizenship Studies. She’s fluent in Spanish and studied at Centro Universitário Una in Minas Gerais, Brazil, on a scholarship sponsored by the Department of Defense.

She was formerly a National Security Fellow with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former Penn Kemble Democracy Forum Fellow with the National Endowment for Democracy. She is a current Board Member for the Strategic Intelligence Program at Patrick Henry College. 

Prior to joining Heritage, she was a student trainee at the Defense Intelligence Agency. She worked at Virginia-based International Relief and Development, where she worked on rule of law issues in Latin America, and at the U.S. Agency for International Development, where she worked on civilian-military cooperation.

She and her husband live in Northern Virginia.