Melissa Giraud

Melissa Giraud is co-founder and co-director of EmbraceRace. She has spent a lifetime trying to center the voices, experiences and concerns of children and families, with a particular interest in BIPOC, immigrant, and first-generation children. She is the multiracial (Black/White) daughter of immigrants from Quebec and Dominica. Professionally, Melissa has sought to empower marginalized kids and families, first as an elementary school educator teaching in a bilingual (Spanish/English) program in a predominantly Mexican and Mexican American neighborhood in Chicago, then as an NPR producer in DC driven to recruit BIPOC voices and perspectives in the newsroom, and later as a radio reporter who collaborated with her former elementary students as they were coming of age to capture the experience of living biculturally and transnationally for NPR.

Melissa further pursued her interest in K-12 education and equity in graduate school and has been a consultant to numerous foundations and organizations, with special attention to the promise and perils of technology in advancing educational equity. Melissa has a B.A. in History from the University of Chicago and a M.A. in Education from The Ohio State University. She and her partner Andrew have two kids.