Nicole Melaku
Nicole Melaku, the Executive Director of National Partnership for New Americans, brings over a decade of experience working on immigrant and refugee issues at the local, state, and national level. As Executive Director, she works to harness the collective power of NPNA’s 41 member organizations across 37 states to advance immigrant integration efforts through advocacy, organizing campaigns, and policy initiatives. Melaku is the former Executive Director of NPNA member organization, the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition, and a former Board of Director and staff of NPNA. She led the expansion of the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition to over 95 immigrant and refugee serving organizations and helped pass some of the country’s most notable and affirmative immigrant integration policies, led scaled naturalization and civic engagement campaigns including NPNA’s Citizenship Now!,Cities for Citizenship, and America is Home naturalization campaigns at the state and local level. Melaku is a first generation New American whose mother and grandparents hail from Chihuahua, Mexico and who naturalized as a result of the Immigration Reform and Naturalization Act of 1986. Melaku's career trajectory draws on the strength and perseverance of her family’s own immigration story-she is an advocate, organizer, and movement leader who is dedicated to building a more inclusive and fair democracy. She is a Welcoming America White House Champion of Change (2014), a Hispanic in Philanthropy Fellow (2018-19), a Transformative Leadership for Change Fellow, a New American Leaders fellow and a former co-chair of the Fair Immigration Reform Movement.