As Katal’s organizing director, Melanie works to grow a strong membership base, build and win campaigns, and strengthen the movement ecosystem. Her work includes developing member-leaders, managing the organizing team, facilitating actions in New York City and Albany, conducting trainings, and guiding campaign planning and strategy. 

Melanie joined Katal in the early fall of 2020, and from day one has worked alongside community members who are directly impacted by mass incarceration. When thousands of New Yorkers – including those who had loved ones who were incarcerated – were feeling the devastating impacts of COVID-19, she worked to grow Katal’s base and guide families to organize and demand the city and state release people from detention. She helped drive the historic Less Is More parole reform campaign to victory in 2021, drastically reducing the number of people sent to jail and prison for technical parole violations. From 2021 – 2023, Melanie helped lead the grassroots effort to monitor implementation of these unprecedented reforms, organizing dozens of info sessions across the state and coordinating with Katal members to engage local, county, and state officials. 

In 2022, Melanie facilitated the deliberations with Katal members that led to the organization’s decision to demand that the federal courts appoint an independent receiver. At the time, conditions at the jail complex had become dire, and mayor Eric Adams was ignoring the New York City law requiring closure of Rikers. She led members and organizational allies to hold community info sessions, rallies and marches outside the courthouse, and to engage and educate elected officials about the crisis. In 2025, the court finally issued the order for a federal receiver at Rikers – a huge victory for people detained there and for their families.

Melanie co-led the successful campaign to pass the 2025 reforms to overhaul the State Commission of Correction (SCOC), an independent government agency with investigative and oversight authority over all jails and prisons in New York. This agency has the power to shut down Rikers and other correctional facilities failing to keep people in “safe, stable, and humane conditions.” The campaign is now focused on implementation of the reforms. 

From 2022 to 2025, Melanie led a project to expand Katal’s outreach efforts through canvassing doors intensively. The canvassing team hit nearly 200,000 doors across all five boroughs of New York City, holding thousands of conversations to raise awareness about the crisis at Rikers, the ways it impacts their communities, and how to fight back. Melanie coauthored the report documenting the project, Three Years, Five Boroughs, 200,000 Doors: A Report on Katal’s #ShutRikers Canvassing Project.

Melanie brings an intersectional analysis to her organizing and believes that movements are more likely to grow when groups find ways to collaborate across issue areas. In 2024, when the Adams administration proposed reopening an ICE office on Rikers, Melanie banded together with numerous immigrant rights groups and supporters to develop a rapid response coalition to stop the proposal and protect the rights of all New Yorkers.

Before joining Katal, Melanie worked as a fellow with 350 Action and 350.org, where she played a critical role in prioritizing communities of color, which are too often overlooked in the climate movement. She conducted a series of outreach sessions in New York City neighborhoods most impacted by climate change and helped organize the9/20 Climate Strike, which brought together thousands of students to demand climate justice. 

Melanie’s work has appeared in a wide range of broadcast, online, and print media, including amNY, Black Agenda Report, Filter, News 12 – The Bronx, News 12 – Brooklyn, The City, the New York Amsterdam News, PIX 11, Spectrum News–NY1, Telemundo, WBAI, WHEC-TV, and 1010 WINS. She coauthored the report Rikers Island and Mental Health: Pathways Toward Community-Based Diversion and Jail Population Reduction, and contributed to the 2024 zine #ShutRikers: A Brief History of Political Graphics in 15 Stickers, published by Josh MacPhee and Pavement Press, with a second edition in 2026. Melanie is a Galaxy Leader Changemaker Fellow, and has completed a variety of trainings, including through the Midwest Academy, Working Class Campaigns, The Management Center, and the Advocacy Institute. 

Melanie’s family came to New York from Ecuador when she was five years old, and she grew up in Washington Heights, a vibrant, diverse community of people of color and migrant families. She graduated from John Jay College of Criminal Justice with a degree in political science.