Melissa is a policy advocate with a passion for education equity and serving children, youth, and families. She has experience in federal and state government, private and nonprofit sectors. She has a track record of legislative success in Congress and at the Maryland General Assembly and other state legislatures, on complex pieces of legislation ranging from college affordability, ending the school-to-prison pipeline, service year programming, tackling youth food insecurity, and other issues. She also has experience in federal and state agency engagement, and knows how to move the needle on administrative and regulatory reforms.She has experience in: - policy analysis, research and writing to support principal decisionmakers,- organizing and issue advocacy,- Congressional and state legislative engagement,- White House Domestic Policy Council, federal, and state agency engagement,- political campaigns (policy & field),- strategic communications,- qualitative & quantitative social science research, - data manipulation and analysis (STATA, Access and Excel), - program evaluation, - project management, - volunteer management, - professional development and coaching,- social media management,- financial management (budgets up to $5million)- federal aquisition regulations, - conference planning/advance- basic HTML, GoogleDocs, SalesForce, social media, HootSuite, Google AnalyticsHer graduate coursework revolved primarily around education policy from pre-K through higher education, and social policy related to children and families. Her undergraduate degree centered on international politics, particularly in Russia and the post-Soviet space. She spent a semester abroad in St. Petersburg, Russia.