Quick Facts
Biography
Sheila Crowley has been Acting Director of the Peace Corps since January 2017. She previously held several positions in the Peace Corps, most recently as Acting Associate Director of Peace Corps' Office of Volunteer Recruitment and Selection (VRS).
Education
Crowley holds a bachelor’s degree in history and Russian studies from The Pennsylvania State University and a master’s degree in information science from Drexel University.
Career
Crowley began her career in the corporate sector, where she worked for McKinsey & Company, the Mitchell Madison Group, and JP Morgan Securities.
Crowley was a Volunteer for the Peace Corps between 2001 to 2003 in Ukraine, where she taught English, organized leadership and sports camps for youth, and worked at a refugee center. Crowley worked for five years with Habitat for Humanity International as Associate Director of the Global Village program and as a Director in the Office of Volunteer Mobilization. She returned to the Peace Corps in 2010, when she took over the position of Peace Corps Country Director, first in Romania and then in Indonesia until 2015. Between 2015 and 2017, Crowley was Acting Associate Director of Peace Corps’ Office of Volunteer Recruitment and Selection (VRS), overseeing the recruitment, assessment, and placement of Peace Corps Volunteers worldwide.
After being named Acting Director, Crowley presented the 2017 Lillian Carter Award together with Former President Jimmy Carter and Peace Corps Board Member Ron Stephens in the Cecil B. Day Chapel at the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia.
In February 2017, Crowley commented on an article reporting about the number of volunteers from Connecticut College. She emphasized that the qualifications volunteers earned during their service, such as cultural competency and entrepreneurial spirit, are important assets for most jobs in the private sector. In an article headlined "Trump administration: No changes to girls’ education effort" in May 2017, Crowley reported on the accomplishment of the "Let Girls Learn" initiative and thanked its supporters. During the 2017 annual connect meeting of the National Peace Corps Association Crowely commented on budget cuts envisaged by the Trump administration, stating that she believed several organizational reforms are necessary, even if they cannot be considered to be "sexy".
During her time as Peace Corps country director in Romania, Crowley received for her organization the Romanian Order of Cultural Merit from the country's President.