Melissa Schwartz

At Johns Hopkins, Melissa Schwartz serves as a lecturer in the MA in Communication program.

Schwartz has spent 25 years at the intersection of communications and public policy, with experience in the federal government, the private sector, and at nonprofit organizations. She most recently served as a political appointee at the U.S. Department of the Interior, from the first to the last day of the Biden-Harris administration. She spent 15 months as Senior Counselor to Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland and Chief of Staff to Acting Deputy Secretary Laura Daniel-Davis. In addition, she spent nearly three years as the agency’s Communications Director.

Prior to her return to public service, Schwartz was the Director of the First Lady’s office for the Presidential Inaugural Committee and Senior Advisor to Dr. Jill Biden on the Biden-Harris campaign. She served as Chief Operating Officer at The Bromwich Group for almost nine years where she coordinated communications strategy for efforts to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. She also worked to raise awareness of the rape kit backlog and gender-based violence, conserve public lands and the ocean, and facilitate a just transition for coal communities. She also managed the firm’s crisis communications practice, where clients included former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and Dr. Christine Blasey Ford during the confirmation hearings for now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Tapped by the Obama administration to manage communications for the federal agency responsible for the regulation and oversight of offshore drilling in U.S. federal waters following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, she is also a former senior spokesperson at the U.S. Departments of Justice and the Interior, and for U.S. Senator Barbara A. Mikulski.

In addition to her work in education, Schwartz has published chapters in public relations news guidebooks focused on pr measurement, crisis management, media training, and corporate social responsibility. She earned her MA in Political Communications from Johns Hopkins University and graduated summa cum laude from the University of California, Berkeley with a BA in American Studies.