Melanie Burkett

Melanie Burkett is an Undergraduate Advising Director, helping students explore and discover academic interests, choose courses and majors, set goals, enhance study habits, maintain academic progress, navigate university policies and procedures, connect with faculty, integrate co-curricular interests into the undergraduate experience, and think about possibilities for after graduation. She particularly enjoys helping students have global experiences. As an undergraduate, she was heavily dependent on financial aid at an elite institution and is committed to ensuring all Stanford undergraduates can take advantage of all of Stanford's opportunities.

Prior to joining academic advising in 2022, Melanie served as the Assistant Dean for Advising and Experiential Learning at Quinnipiac University's College of Arts and Sciences and as a Director of Academic Engagement for Global and Civic Opportunities at Duke University. In the latter role, she helped students incorporate global and civic engagement experiences into their undergraduate careers.

This work in global education inspired her academic research in two ways. First, she choose to complete her PhD abroad at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. Secondly, she is fascinated by the experiences of world travelers from a different era: early nineteenth-century migrants. Her research examines the integration of working-class British migrants into the colonial societies they joined and the relationship of working-class migration to settler colonialism. Her first monograph -- Opposing Australia's First Assisted Immigrants, 1832-42 -- was published in late 2021.