Biography
Melisa Ross earned her PhD from Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany. Prior to joining EUI, she was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bremen, senior researcher at Public Agenda, and doctoral researcher at the Democracy and Democratization Department of WZB Berlin Social Science Center. She also serves as Co-Lead of the Global Citizens’ Assemblies Network (GloCAN), and Co-Chair of ECPR's Standing Group on Democratic Innovations. She has also conducted visiting research fellowships at the Research Institute for Sustainability Studies (RIFS), the Centre for Deliberative Democracy at the University of Canberra.
She has performed commissioned work for the Open Government Partnership (OGP), the United Nations Program for Development (UNPD), the European Commission, the Commission’s Joint Research Center (JRC), and the European Climate Foundation (ECF), among others. In addition, she serves as scientific advisor for multiple projects and institutions, including the Board of Directors of Extituto de Política Abierta in Colombia, the Competence Center on Participatory and Deliberative Democracy (CC-DEMOS), the ScaleDem HE-2020 project, and the Centre for Research on Democracy (CREDO) at Stellenbosch University.
Her work spans citizen participation, deliberation, and democratic innovations in comparative perspective, in Europe and Latin America. Her Max Weber Fellowship will explore comparative studies of deliberative mini-publics at the European and global level.