Melissa Schwartz has spent 25 years at the intersection of communications and public policy, with experience in the federal government, the private sector, and at nonprofit organizations. She currently serves as the Chief Public Affairs & Policy Officer at Democracy Forward, the national legal the national legal organization that has emerged as an essential player in the legal push back to the current administration’s extreme attacks on people and democracy.

She served as a political appointee at the U.S. Department of the Interior, from the first to the last day of the Biden-Harris administration. She spent 15 months as Senior Counselor to Secretary Deb Haaland and Chief of Staff to Acting Deputy Secretary Laura Daniel-Davis. In addition, she spent more than three years as the agency’s Communications Director.

Prior to her return to public service, Melissa was the Director of the First Lady’s office for the Presidential Inaugural Committee and Senior Advisor to Dr. Biden on the Biden-Harris campaign. She served as Chief Operating Officer at The Bromwich Group for almost nine years. Projects included coordinating communications strategy for efforts to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, raise awareness of the rape kit backlog and gender-based violence, conserve public lands and the ocean, and facilitate a just transition for coal communities. She also managed the firm’s crisis communications practice, where clients included former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and Dr. Christine Blasey Ford during the confirmation hearings for now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

She was tapped by the Obama administration to manage communications and congressional affairs for the Interior Department’s bureau responsible for the regulation and oversight of offshore drilling in U.S. federal waters following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. She is also a former senior spokesperson at the U.S. Department of Justice and for U.S. Senator Barbara A. Mikulski.

In addition to her Senior Affiliate faculty role at Comm Lead, Melissa is also an Adjunct Faculty member at Johns Hopkins University’s Master of Arts in Communication program. She has published chapters in PR News Guidebooks focused on PR Measurement, Crisis Management, Media Training, and Corporate Social Responsibility. She earned her M.A. in Political Communications from Johns Hopkins University and graduated summa cum laude from the University of California, Berkeley with a B.A. in American Studies.