Melissa J. Nelson is an award-winning archivist, educator, and community connector based in Toronto, Canada.  

Her work centres Black being and belonging in the Archives to support collective healing and liberation movements. She is guided by critical and creative praxis to reimagine Archives as sites of Black joy.

Currently, Melissa is developing a grassroots Black Activist Archive and Alternative School with Wildseed Centre for Art + Activism — home of Black Lives Matter Canada. This project will inspire liberatory creativity, support social justice movements, empower generations of memory activists, and nurture the continuity of community-based archival work. They believe in the power of imagination for architecting a new world for Black Futurities — expansive possibilities for the future of Black life.

Melissa works simultaneously at the community and institutional levels to transform how we understand, preserve, and activate collective memory. She has a consulting practice spanning across notable clients such as Harvard University, ARMA International, Library and Archives Canada, Association of Canadian Archivists, among others. 

Melissa is the Founder and Creative Director of the Black Memory Collective. She was also the Creator and Host of the podcast, Archives & Things. Melissa holds a Master of Information Studies from McGill University. She received a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in History, with a minor in Sociology, from Carleton University.