Ivana Gajović was born and raised in Podgorica, and graduated with a BA in English Language and Literature while studying in Nikšic and Priština. Since 2000 Ivana has been working as a Project Coordinator in the Nansen Dialogue Centre in Montenegro, where she began as one of the organization's original Founders. Ivana is also working with the South East European Mediation Forum as a National Coordinator for Montenegro and a member of the Advisory Board, where she also served as the organization's Chairperson from October 2006 through November 2007. Since 2004 she has been an alumna of the Anglo-Yugoslav Society. Since 1999 Ivana has participated in number of professional conferences and seminars. For example, in 1999 she was a participant with Group IX of the Nansen Academy in Lillehammer, Norway, working on the program "Democracy, Human Rights, and Peaceful Conflict Resolution; in 2000 she participated in Training for Trainers (Cyprus); in 2001 she participated in the Advanced Training for Trainers (Hungary); and in 2002 participated in the School for Public Relations. She has also been serving as an Organizer for the Balkan Conference of the Global Partnership on Prevention of Armed Conflicts, and in 2005 served as a delegate from Montenegro for a United Nations conference. In short, Ivana has well over eight years of experience working in the NGO sector in a variety of mediation, democratization, conflict transformation, inter-ethnic, and communication programs.