Dr. Bente Scheller took over as Head of Middle East and North Africa Division at the Heinrich Böll Foundation in September 2019. From 2012 to 2019, she headed the foundation’s office in Beirut. Prior to that, starting in 2008, she led the office in Afghanistan and worked as a political advisor at the German Embassy in Damascus from 2002 to 2004. In 2013, her book "The Wisdom of Syria's Waiting Game: Foreign Policy Under the Assads" was published. She is a Marshall Memorial Fellow of the German Marshall Fund of the United States.