Melissa currently serves as the Managing Director at LUCHA/ACE. With over 9 years of experience Melissa has been dedicated to organizing on issues that have deeply marginalized her community. While pursuing her bachelor's degree at Arizona State University, Melissa started organizing during the ‘Adios Arpaio’ campaign in Phoenix, AZ registering Latinxs to vote, and continued her passion by organizing low-wage workers in the hospitality industry in Arizona and Texas. In 2015, Melissa joined Planned Parenthood’s Raiz program to push & implement Comprehensive Sex Education in the largest school district in Tucson, AZ and soon after became the Latinx Campaigns Associate Director at Planned Parenthood Federation of America. She sees her work as part of a larger, radical framework for dismantling oppression & cultivating our own inherited power.