Dr. Melissa Gómez Hernández is a program officer in the foundation’s Andean Region office in Bogotá, where she leads grantmaking related to peace and mitigating polarization.

Melissa joined the foundation in 2024. Prior to this, she coordinated and directed the Afrodiasporic Studies Center (CEAF), a multidisciplinary and diverse community committed to ethnic and racial justice with an intersectional perspective that is part of the Faculty of Human Sciences at Icesi University in Cali, Colombia. As CEAF’s project coordinator and director, she supervised and co-designed projects that educated the public on the contributions of the African diaspora and other excluded and discriminated communities.

In the past, Melissa co-created “Bogotrans” at the Economic Development Secretary of the City of Bogotá, an initiative for transgender women’s economic rights. These roles have allowed her a strong interaction with representatives of the social justice and human rights movement, including communities, donors, institutional structures, and political authorities at the local and national levels. 

Melissa trained as a political scientist, specializing in public affairs with a master’s degree and a Ph.D. at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia and Florida International University, respectively. She was also nominated to the Fulbright Excellence Award 2022.