Hello!
I’m Mel. I’ve led social media and audience engagement for some of the most well-known non-profits in the world, and worked on some of the trickiest problems in the news and information ecosystem.
I care deeply about publics - our public libraries, schools, media organizations, and instutitions, and have devoted my career to helping them thrive.
My goals have always been the same: to identify and build audiences; translate and curate information; and increase engagement with our civic and public institutions. I cut my teeth writing intros for Terry Gross and jokes for Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me - I thrive juggling multiple projects in fast-paced environments.
I currently help social scientists translate their research to policymakers, the media, and the public. Over my 20-year career, I’ve led teams and projects alongside academics, engineers, journalists, non-profit executives, and federal government departments.
My work and research has been featured by The New York Times, iTunes, Nieman’s Journalism Lab, Mashable, Poynter, the Shorty Awards, Knight-Mozilla Open News, USA Today, GigaOm, and the Village Voice Web Awards, among others. At various points, I’ve had the #1 piece on Medium, the #1 piece on Storify, and the #1 piece on Hacker News.
Outside of work, I help run a civic news cooperative focused on Chapel Hill and Carrboro, NC. We’ve broken major stories which have subsequently been featured on HBO and local and national news organizations. We blend humor with facts, and cover everything from the state legislature to local advisory board meetings.
