Since 1919, The New School has been home to scholars, creators, and activists who challenge convention and boldly make their mark on the world. To celebrate this groundbreaking legacy, we are opening our doors to the public for a weeklong festival of innovative performances, talks, workshops, screenings, exhibitions, and more.
On October 1–6, 2019, join us as we reflect on a century of world-changing ideas and together imagine a new kind of future.
Melanie Beth Oliviero is a senior level strategist and educator with global and grassroots experience. She offers expertise working with private and public sector to advance strategic planning, organizational development, and advocacy efforts, especially those involving collaborative engagement and equity considerations of vulnerable groups.
Serving as Strategic Advisor (on staff and as consultant) to DAI (Development Alternatives, Inc.), she engages private businesses and philanthropies in collaboration with public donors such as USAID (the US international aid agency) leveraging their collective financial and creative resources to advance human development. She previously led the formation of a new grantmaking priority to support human rights actors in an increasingly globalized economy at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
Melanie’s experience derives from being a frontline NGO leader including programs on Indigenous rights (Executive Director, Indian Rights Association, founded in the USA in 1882), comparative constitutionalism globally (Project Director, American Council of Learned Societies), and strengthening journalists in developing countries to examine overlooked issues like public health challenges (Executive Director, Panos Institute). Her skill in this capacity-building of individuals and institutions is the basis for the Certified Performance Technologist certification she holds issued by the International Society for Performance Improvement (https://www.ispi.org/).
Melanie’s Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in sociolinguistics and linguistics are from Georgetown University (Washington, DC, USA). On the faculty of the New School (NYC) since 1995, she teaches online courses to adult learners globally, on civil society and media, and onsite at schools of business (University of Manitoba), law (Chicago-Kent, Illinois Institute of Technology) and continuing education (University of Winnipeg), as well as facilitating public education for diverse communities.
