Bente Scheller is Head of Middle East and North Africa Division at the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung in Berlin. In 2012 she became the Head of Office of the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung's Middle East office in Beirut, a position she took after directing the foundation's Afghanistan office in Kabul between 2008 and 2012.

She holds a doctorate in political science at Freie Universität Berlin and specialises in Foreign and Security Policy. From 2002 to 2004 she worked at the German Embassy in Damascus, Syria. Later she took over the Berlin Aspen Institute's Syria programme. In November 2013, her book ‘The Wisdom of Syria's Waiting Game. Foreign Policy under the Assad’ had been published in London. Dr Scheller is a frequent commentator on current affairs in the region in newspapers and radio, among others BBC, Die Zeit, taz and The European. She is blogging at Heinrich von Arabien.