Melissa Connerton

​Melissa Connerton joined The Wallace Foundation in 2016. As senior communications officer for the foundation’s Youth Development initiatives, she is responsible for strategic communications planning, knowledge dissemination, and outreach in the areas of afterschool, social and emotional learning, and summer learning.

Before joining Wallace, Connerton spent 17 years working in public relations and strategic communications in both agency and in-house capacities. Most recently, she was vice president and director of client services at CooperKatz and Company, managing clients in the education, healthcare, and professional services sectors. She also served as senior publicist for the 92nd Street Y, a cultural institution and community center in Manhattan. Earlier in her career, she worked as an associate editor at Blackwell Journals (now Wiley), a publisher of peer-reviewed journals in the humanities and social sciences.

Connerton received a master’s degree from Boston College and a bachelor’s degree from Smith College, both in English language and literature. She has served on the Board of the Smith College Club of New York City. Connerton credits her college junior year abroad in London for inspiring her love of theater and lukewarm ales as well as her enduring inability to refer to French fries as anything but “chips.” Connerton is a 20-year resident of Brooklyn, where she lives with her husband and the two houseplants she’s been able to maintain.