Earlier this fall, the Urban Democracy Lab welcomed writer Melissa Bean as our chief blogger. Born in Rochester, New York, Melissa earned her B.A. at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study in May 2014. Her concentration, entitled Deviance and Social Control: Realities and Representations, combined an in-depth study of sociology, literature, and psychology, allowing her to take an interdisciplinary approach to questions of social regulation. Melissa is also a creative writer whose fiction has appeared in Scissors and Spackle, Literary Orphans, and The Gallatin Review. She is currently pursuing an M.F.A in Fiction at New York University.

Over the next several months, Melissa will be speaking with activists, scholars, artists, filmmakers, community organizers, and other changemakers who are helping us all think more creatively and sustainably about what urban democracy looks like. She will uncover the motivations and challenges that have helped shape her subjects. And, crucially, she will ask these important leaders to tell us what tools are necessary to advance our shared goal of a just and thriving urban future.

Please join us in welcoming Melissa Bean to the Urban Democracy Lab!