Keynote: Michelle Melendez, City of Albuquerque Equity and Inclusion Director

Michelle Melendez, MPA, is a graduate of UNM Communications and Journalism and of the School of Public Administration, both of which launched her into a series of diverse careers, first as a newspaper reporter, then as a public health policy advocate and community organizer and now as a public servant in the administration of Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller. Her current work as the inaugural director of the City of Albuquerque’s Office of Equity and Inclusion put her in a central position to lead the fight against the dual pandemics of COVID and racism at an unprecedented time in our nation’s history. Her work is rooted in values of self-determination, intersectionality and justice as a means toward truth, racial healing and transformation.

Michelle served on the Board of Trustees of UNM Hospitals as an appointee of the Bernalillo County Commission, with whom a coalition of community organizers worked successfully to expand immigrant and American Indian access to affordable healthcare at our state’s only public hospital. She was a founding board member of Health Leadership High School and of Future Focused Education, whose mission is to advance the best education for students who need it the most. Michelle was fortunate to be selected for many leadership development programs over the years, including a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation fellowship at the Center for Creative Leadership, where she honed her collaborative, servant leadership style.

Inspired by her father’s example as a UNM Law School graduate who successfully sued the State Bar of New Mexico to dismantle a racist grading policy, Michelle pursued audacious goals of addressing root causes of injustice, first as a newspaper reporter and later in her other roles. She cut her professional teeth as a journalist at the Daily Lobo, where she doggedly pursued answers from Scholes Hall. She went on to report for the Albuquerque Journal and for some of the nation’s largest news agencies in Texas and Mexico City. All along, her mother’s 45-year career as a UNM-trained registered nurse gave Michelle a belief that everyone, regardless of their race, gender expression, nationality or immigration status, should have meaningful access to comprehensive, high-quality healthcare. For her, the transition from journalism to policy advocacy was almost seamless, the main difference being that of exposing injustices on the front pages as a staff writer to exposing injustices on the front pages as a community organizer.

Her path crossed with that of Mayor Tim Keller when he first ran for office as a state legislator in the Southeast Heights of Albuquerque when it was called by the epithet “The War Zone.” Their work together alongside community leaders to transform the area into the International District began nearly 20 years ago and continues today as part of a larger set of strategies aimed at dismantling structural inequities and addressing the social determinants of health and their policy antecedents. The Office of Equity and Inclusion has expanded over its first six years under Michelle’s leadership to include Immigrant and Refugee Affairs, Native American Affairs and Black Community Engagement, as well as a Race Equity Data Insights Analyst and the City’s Culture Change Leader, all of whom work closely with UNM colleagues and co-conspirators on issues of health, housing, jobs and climate justice. Together, Michelle’s small but mighty team focuses on who we hire as a city government, who we do business with, where we invest and how we more equitably serve our city’s increasingly diverse population.