Melanie Rocco

M.S.W., M.P.H.

Melanie Rocco, MSW, MPH, is a public health social worker and certified sexuality educator. As HDI’s Administrative Director, Melanie provides administrative, pre- and post- award management, and research associate support to various grant-funded projects and contributes to the strategic planning and operations development of HDI. She is also involved in development and monitoring of HDI’s student fellowship program and provides supervision and mentoring for HDI’s student fellows. Melanie has experience in community based participatory research, qualitative data collection and analysis methods, and program and curriculum development and evaluation.

Melanie is passionate about sexual and reproductive health equity. She likes to contribute her voice, knowledge and skills to research and policy that strive to make sexual and reproductive health care more accessible and gender-affirming, and programs that engage communities in the development of consent-based, pleasure-guided, and medically-accurate sexuality education for folks of all ages.