Maria Martisiute is a Policy Analyst at the European Policy Centre focusing on defence, security and foreign affairs.

Her 10+ years of work experience spans NATO, EU, national administration in London and Vilnius, the industry, and NGOs. Before joining the EPC, Maria worked for NATO on reform in defence and security sectors with partners in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Her ideas, coupled with personal lead in restructuring the Directorate and shaping NATO’s cooperative security trust funds reform, proved critical, as did her volunteering efforts with Afghanistan (2021) and Ukraine (2022), letting her tap into complex crisis management environment.

Before that, she worked for the European Commission on EU’s strategic investments in three network infrastructures (TENs), focusing on innovative financing, impact assessment, Eastern Europe, and Rail Baltica project. Several times she accompanied and provided on the spot advice to the Commissioner for Transport during her missions in Lithuania. 

Maria lived in the UK, Spain and lately, Belgium. For 3 years she resided in the British-Japanese Chaucer College Canterbury (UK), leading English conversation classes and promoting people-to-people dialogue with international Japanese students. She also assisted Japanese students on subjects involving international relations and European integration.

Maria holds an MPhil degree in European Politics and Society from the University of Oxford and BA with Honours in Politics and International Relations with Spanish from the University of Kent in Canterbury. She spent one Erasmus year at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.