Violetta Zentai is a social anthropologist, associate professor at the School of Public Policy and research fellow at the Democracy Institute of the Central European University, Budapest-Vienna. She is also faculty member of the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology and the Doctoral School for Political Sciences and International Relations of the University. She has been founding member and advisor to the Open Learning Initiative (OLIve) program of the CEU since 2016. She co-directed the Center for Policy Studies of the CEU (2003-2020). Her research focuses on ethnic and gender inequalities, post-socialist socio-economic transformations, European social inclusion policies, and social justice and pro-equality civil society formations. She also worked as expert with the Open Society Foundations for two decades on democratic local governance, equality mainstreaming, and rights-based development.