Melissa Maldonado serves as a Policy Analyst on the Illinois Policy team at Start Early, where she supports state legislative advocacy efforts in early childhood by working with the legislature and other policymakers in Springfield.

Prior to Start Early, she was a Career Pathways Program Manager and worked on regional community systems work by leading various early childhood workforce and professional development initiatives in Denver, Colorado. She also held various roles as an early childhood provider including as an FFN provider, child care provider at a license-exempt program, and later leading various early literacy initiatives for the library system in Mesa County, Colorado. During her time leading early literacy initiatives, she led the creation and coordinating of various early childhood literacy programs and collaborations with early childhood providers and also taught early literacy and early bi-literacy skills to young children at libraries, child care and preschool classrooms, early elementary school classrooms and community outreach events. In addition to her decade of experience in early childhood, she has also participated in immigrant rights community organizing and child welfare advocacy as a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) in the foster care system of Denver, Colorado. 

She holds a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Psychology with a minor in Speech and Communications from Colorado Mesa University, a Master of Jurisprudence (MJ) in Child Law and Policy from Loyola University Chicago’s School of Law, and a Master of Science in Child Development (MSCD) from Erikson Institute.