Melanie is an inclusive, battle-tested leader with over 20 years of experience winning campaigns that build and shift power and managing transformational initiatives at the highest levels of government. 

Melanie joined the FUN as our Senior National Organizing Director after spending much of 2025 organizing the U.S. Agency for International Development’s workforce to fight back against our unlawful dismantling and the Trump Administration’s attacks on public service and the rule of law. 

Previously, Melanie built and led Democracy Delivers, an initiative surging resources to 11 countries experiencing democratic openings to help reformers deliver on their people’s priorities and fight authoritarianism. As the Chief of Staff for USAID’s COVID-19 Task Force, she facilitated the Agency's global health and humanitarian response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 125 countries with over $5 billion in emergency funding, delivering 688 million vaccines and saving millions of lives. Melanie also served as the Chief of Staff for Feed the Future, the U.S. Government's global food security and hunger initiative, which helped reduce extreme poverty by 19% and hunger by 30% where we worked; and Power Africa, multi-billion dollar Presidential initiative that aimed to double access to electricity across sub-Saharan Africa. 

Prior to USAID, Melanie built coalitions in the Global North and South that advanced global health and economic equity. On President Obama’s re-election campaign, she hired, trained, and managed teams across 17 states to achieve volunteer recruitment, leadership development, and voter engagement goals. She later co-founded Neighbors for a Blue Virginia, a grassroots group that helped first-time candidates of color and women flip and then hold multiple state legislative seats. 

Melanie received her MPP in Political & Economic Development from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, where she taught organizing with Marshall Ganz and earned the school’s highest honor, the RFK Award for Excellence in Public Service. She is the proud mama of two lego-obsessed kids and the proud wife of a civil servant.