Melissa Boissiere, PhD

Melissa Boissiere is an international relations expert and policy analyst with a decade of diplomatic experience. She served for seven years as a diplomat at the Trinidad and Tobago Mission to the United Nations in New York, where she negotiated multilateral resolutions on social, humanitarian, cultural and health issues, working closely with UN agencies, civil society, and national governments. Melissa holds a PhD in International Relations from Florida International University (FIU) with a focus on international political economy and a regional focus on the Caribbean. She also holds Master’s Degrees in Latin American and Caribbean Studies and Spanish, from FIU and the University of the West Indies (UWI), respectively, and a Bachelor’s Degree in Spanish and Latin American Studies from UWI. Her academic background has centered on trade and power dynamics, global governance institutions, development in small states, economic justice and inequality, and gender-based violence in the Caribbean and Latin America. Her current research interests include security, including crime and security and food security, socio-economic inequality, and the intersection of policy and lived experience, particularly in the Caribbean context. She is fluent in English, which is her first language, and Spanish.