Melissa returned to Harvard after a decade in January 2025. Her expertise lies at the intersection of analytics, data governance, and data strategy. Before returning to Harvard, Melissa served as the inaugural Data Governance Manager at Georgia State University in Atlanta, GA, where she worked closely with the university’s data trustees, stewards, and custodians to establish a robust, university-wide data governance program, culture, and data strategy. In her early roles at Harvard as an Assessment Researcher/Research Manager and at MIT as the Associate Director for Research & Evaluation, she analyzed and developed visualizations using institutional data to inform leaders’ decision-making about academic programs and the student experience. Her interest in data governance grew from her need for guidance on locating, accessing, handling, analyzing, and presenting results using institutional data. Melissa is an active member of EDUCAUSE and the Association for Institutional Research (AIR) and frequently presents and co-authors articles on data governance, data literacy, and best practices to communicate across various audiences. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology, with a focus on quantitative analysis and social stratification, a B.A. in English writing from Denison University, and is a Certified Data Management Professional (CDMP).