Staff

Marcos Lucio Popovich joined the Nellie Mae Education Foundation (NMEF) in 2015 and currently serves as Director of Community & Partnerships. In this role, Marcos leads the Foundation’s Community Engagement strategy, working with communities across New England to advance community-defined priorities and solutions and build the conditions for more equitable and responsive education systems.

Over more than a decade at NMEF, Marcos has led the design, implementation, and adaptation of multi-million-dollar grant strategies focused on equity-centered systems change in public K-12 education. His work has supported community-driven change efforts across more than 25 New England communities.

Before joining the NMEF, Marcos served as an Education Program Fellow at the Barr Foundation, where he managed grantmaking focused on out-of-school time and K-12 strategies to reengage young people and expand opportunities for young men of color in Boston. He has also served as a Proteus Fund Diversity Fellow at EdVestors, supporting grantmaking for school improvement efforts in Boston.

Throughout his career, Marcos has worked to expand civic participation and ensure that communities have a voice in the decisions that affect their lives. Prior to entering philanthropy, Marcos served as Director of Operations at the U.S. Hispanic Leadership Institute, where he led national efforts focused on civic engagement, leadership development, voter registration, and research. He directed research and writing for the Almanac of Latino Politics, a national analysis of Latino demographic trends and political participation.

He also served as a long-term consultant to the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners, helping implement election modernization efforts that expanded access to voting and supported the transition of more than 2,000 polling places to new voting systems and procedures.

Marcos holds a B.A. in Ethnic Studies with a focus on Latino Studies from Bowling Green State University, an M.A. in History with a focus on Mexican American civil rights history from Arizona State University, and a J.D. with a Certificate in Public Interest Law from DePaul University College of Law. He serves as Co-Chair of Boston Education Funders and sits on the board of Sociedad Latina.