Melissa Olson (she/her/hers) is an Indigenous person of mixed Anishinaabe and Euro-American heritage, a tribal citizen of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe at Leech Lake. Melissa currently serves as the Deputy Director of MIGIZI Communications, a non-profit organization serving American Indian youth. She is also a writer and producer of independent public media. She currently serves as the co-managing editor of MinneCulture, an audio storytelling project of KFAI Fresh Air Community Radio in Minneapolis. Melissa is honored to have been awarded a Page One – Third Place prize from the MN Society for Professional Journalists for her work on a short story called An Unvarnished, Unholy Tour of Franklin Avenue and a Page One — Second Place prize from the MN Society for Professional Journalists for her full-length audio documentary Stolen Childhoods. Melissa is a graduate of the University of Minnesota’s College of Liberal Arts and completed three years of doctoral study between 2003 and 2006, a proud recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship for her work in American Studies.
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