Dr. Melissa (Mel) Kapadia is a lecturer in critical writing at the Marks Family Center for Excellence in Writing at the University of Pennsylvania. She has been a writing educator for 15 years, beginning as a tutor in a university writing center, where she worked with undergraduate and graduate students, English language learners, and faculty teaching writing in the disciplines. For nine years, she worked as a university administrator, a role in which she wrote for a variety of departments, including communications, alumni relations, student affairs, dean’s offices, events and programming, and research teams. During her time as an administrator, she offered informal writing coaching to her administrative colleagues, including support on business correspondence; web copy; public writing and recruitment materials; and grants and budget proposals. She holds an EdD in reading/writing/literacy from Penn Graduate School of Education. Her doctoral research focused on how university administrators navigate the power and literacy demands of the workplace. She eventually applied these findings and the results of a climate evaluation toward a strategic plan for staff engagement at her workplace. Outside of her current work as a lecturer, she continues to tutor and coach graduate students, university administrators, and executive students working on doctoral dissertations in the field of education.
