Melanie Wilkerson is a youth justice coordinator at the Staten Island Justice Center. She oversees Youth Impact: Staten Island, and Project R.E.A.D.Y, one of the Center’s Alternative-to-Detention programs.
Melanie’s passion for working with justice-involved young people encompasses much of her scholarship and professional experiences. As a college student, she founded RISE (Redefining Ideologies and Stereotypical Expectations), a mentorship-based after-school program at the Westfield Youth Services Center in Massachusetts for justice-involved youth ages 13-21. Prior to working at the Center, she worked as a senior counselor at Children of Promise NYC. Melanie graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from Mount Holyoke College in 2015.