Melanie (she/her) is a social scientist and mentor who enjoys thinking creatively about participatory research, impact storytelling, and culturally responsive evaluation. She joined the Center for Cultural Power in 2021 as an American Council of Learned Societies Leading Edge Fellow. Melanie previously served as founding director of the National Fellowships Office at The University of Texas at El Paso, a Hispanic-serving top research university, and as Director of Mellon Programs at The Institute for Citizens and Scholars. She has a Ph.D. in political science from The University of Connecticut, and was awarded a Boren Fellowship for her research on foreign aid and the Palestinian popular education movement in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. She enjoys gardening, reading, and playing with her two cats.