Marissa Scott, a Senior Fellow of the Melton Foundation graduated from Dillard University in 1999. She currently works as Cultural Affairs Officer in the U. S. Embassy in Algeria. Marissa’s job involves managing, creating, and coordinating cultural and educational programs on behalf of the U.S. government. For example, her office is responsible for soliciting Algerian Fulbright Scholarship hopefuls and for the International Visitor Leadership Program which sends mid-level promising host country nationals to the United States for 2-3 weeks to better equip them in their professions or businesses in Algeria.

“Every single moment of being a Melton Fellow made me realize that I had to work in international relations. I will never forget when we went to China in 2000. We were climbing up some mountain as I describe it. The Chinese Fellows called it a ‘hill’. I just remember being out of breath and wondering if we would ever reach our destination. Finally, we reached it and we could see hundreds of elderly people practicing Tai-Chi. I looked at the Fellows around me and said, “Do they have to climb up the same ‘mountain’ that we climbed to get up here?” “Of course!” the Chinese Fellows assured me that they did. I was dumbfounded; not at the fact that I was about 50-60 years younger than them but that when I believed that we were at the end of our journey, there was a whole new world not far beyond my reach that I was completely unaware of. That is why I became a U. S. diplomat – to get to those places. The Melton Foundation made that reach and grasp possible.”
– Marissa Scott