Melissa Shillingford
Senior Director of Programs and Impact, National Urban Fellows

Melissa has always been a fierce advocate for justice. Melissa is currently the Senior Director of Programs and Impact for National Urban Fellows, which develops accomplished and courageous professionals of all ethnic and racial backgrounds, particularly people of color and women, to be leaders and change agents in the public and nonprofit sectors, with a strong commitment to social justice and equity. She has previous served as the Director of Leadership Trainings at JustLeadershipUSA, a national organization where she organized leadership development and advocacy trainings across the country for formerly incarcerated leaders. Prior to that, Melissa was the Director of Fellowships at the Institute for Justice & Opportunity at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. There, she was responsible for developing and managing several fellowship programs for students passionate about youth justice, advocacy, and philanthropy. Before John Jay, she served in AmeriCorps at the Center for Civic Engagement at Northwestern University where one of her main projects was to develop and manage music mentorship programs for incarcerated young men at the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center. Melissa earned a Project Management Certificate from Baruch College, CUNY, a joint Master’s degree in Human and Community Development and Urban Planning with concentrations in Community Studies and Outreach & Community Development for Social Justice from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, earned her B.S from John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and also participated in the National Urban Fellows-Executive Leadership and Coaching Program.

 

 

 

 

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