The African Studies Center welcomes Assistant Director Melissa Martin

The African Studies Center welcomes Melissa Martin as our new Assistant Director, effective July 15, 2024.

Melissa’s a mission-driven leader who brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to this role in addition to a deep commitment to African Studies. She has extensive grants management experience in international public health, having worked and consulted for a number of NGOs operating in Africa and elsewhere. She studied at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and completed a Certificate in African Studies while majoring in International Politics. After attaining her Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service, she lived in Côte d’Ivoire on a Fulbright fellowship focused on the assessment of programs to help families affected by HIV/AIDS. She cites her time in Côte d’Ivoire as life changing. After returning to the United States and working on a USAID-funded global AIDS prevention program for three years, Melissa completed an MBA at Harvard Business School. She then worked at Harvard University in a number of roles before returning to international public health.

As an independent consultant, Melissa has supported major projects in the United States, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Haiti on grants management, financial & strategic planning, and workshop facilitation. In 2015, as Associate Director for Grants Management and Compliance for Partners in Health, she contributed to responding to the Ebola outbreak for programs in Liberia and Sierra Leone. At Management Sciences for Health, she provided financial management and operational guidance to six country programs, including Ethiopia and Haiti. She began her career in the area of AIDS prevention with PSI, where she was Operations Manager for the AIDSMark grant program and provided technical assistance to programs in Africa, including Côte d’Ivoire, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

While professionally focused on global matters, Melissa also is deeply committed to giving back to her local community. She recently completed six years as an elected member of the Wellesley School Committee, navigating the complexity of school committee leadership during Covid 19 – most likely the toughest times to be a school leader – all the while keeping her eye on questions of access, equity, and the holistic well-being and growth of children and youth, which is no small feat during turbulent times. As the African Studies Center continues to grow, we are fortunate to have Melissa Martin as a leader to advance the center’s Title VI current programs, continue to solidify the center’s processes, community, and strategic vision, and build toward the next round funding.