Melissa is an evangelist across American City Business Journals for digital audience strategies and best practices. She's also traveled around the country to speak about social distribution, digital-first newsrooms, data-driven decision-making, content, teamwork, redesigns, newsrooms of the future, design thinking and innovation.
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She has been an active member of the Society for News Design since 2005, helping to organize the 2006 annual workshop in Orlando and enduring the cold in Syracuse as a facilitator and judge for the organization's annual international design contest. She now serves as SND's Foundation President. 

Previously, Melissa was a senior member of SND's Competition Committee. In 2012, she was competition coordinator for the 34th annual Best of News Design Creative Competition, bringing together a judging group of 27 professionals from around the world to evaluate more than 10,000 entries.

Melissa was the SND Region 3 director for several years and Education and Training Director, in charge of organizing training events and courses around the world.