Melissa was previously an artist-in-residence at CityLife/VidaUrbana and the City of Boston. Her work has received support from A Blade of Grass, Collective Futures Fund, New England Foundation for the Arts, the Sasaki Foundation, and the Un-Monument initiative. Her research about media, design, and technology has been published in Big Data & Society, MIT Thresholds, New Media & Society, the proceedings of Human Factors in Computing Systems (ACM SIGCHI), and the International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction. Her professional design work has been recognized by the Webby’s, Kantar’s Information Is Beautiful, Awwwards, FastCompany’s World Changing Ideas, and the New York Times.
You can find her CV here.
Updates
- I’m thrilled to have my essay Between Fires published in this year’s Thresholds Journal. It’s about care and witnessing during overlapping crises, dedicated to my best friend and with thanks to the wonderful Garnette Cadogan.
- Grateful to be part of a civic design + art + research collective called See You in the Future with my friends / teachers George Halfkenny, Sabrina Dorsainvil, and Steve Walter. We’re honored to have our work-in-progress highlighted in a special issue of the Boston Art Review, in collaboration with the Collective Futures Fund. This was extra special because I got to be interviewed by my friend Matthew Okazaki for it.
- Following the advice of a wise friend and mentor, Rashin Fahandej, I’ve been protecting my creative time and enjoying learning about video and audio production. I revisited an old video about my maternal grandparents to help me process and grieve. I shared it with my mom, and I’d love to share it with you.
- I am honored to design a collage for Catherine D’Ignazio’s new book, Counting Feminicide: Data Feminism in Action.