Melissa Giraud has spent a lifetime trying to center the voices, experiences and concerns of BIPOC kids and families, with a particular interest in BIPOC immigrant and first-generation kids. Her interest grew first from personal experience. She is the multiracial (Black/White) daughter of immigrants from Quebec and from Dominica. Professionally, Melissa has sought to empower marginalized kids and families, first as an elementary school educator teaching in a bilingual (Spanish/English) program in a predominantly Mexican and Mexican American neighborhood in Chicago, then as an NPR producer in DC driven to recruit BIPOC voices and perspectives in the newsroom, and later as a radio reporter who collaborated with her former elementary students as they were coming of age to capture the experience of living biculturally and transnationally for NPR. Melissa further pursued her interest in K-12 education and equity in graduate school and has been a consultant to numerous foundations and organizations, particularly looking at the promise and perils of technology in advancing educational equity. Melissa has a B.A. in History from the University of Chicago and a M.A. in Education from The Ohio State University. Melissa co-founded EmbraceRace in 2016 and has been its co-director since then. She finds the work of organizing parents, caregivers and communities to raise a race-brave generation, and to increase our own capacities to act justly, the most satisfying professional work of all. She thanks her extended circle – not least of all her former students, her partner, Andrew, her family and her two children for the inspiration.