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Melissa Paulsen

Term Assistant Teaching Professor; Academic Programs Assistant Director, McKenna Center; Administrative Director, Integration Lab (i-Lab)

A woman with short blonde hair and brown-framed glasses smiles cheerfully while wearing a dark blue denim button-up shirt.
Office
3170 Jenkins And Nanovic Halls
Notre Dame, IN 46556
Phone
(574) 631-7568
Email
mpaulse1@nd.edu

Expertise

Business and development; social entrepreneurship

Biography & Research

Melissa Paulsen serves as administrative director and faculty advisor for the Master of Global Affairs program's Integration Lab (i-Lab) and as administrative director of the Keough School's social entrepreneurship and innovation minor, facilitated by the McKenna Center for Human Development and Global Business.

A teacher, researcher, and entrepreneur, Paulsen embodies the multifaceted approach necessary to devise and implement solutions for the world’s most complex challenges. She has managed experiential and service-learning programs for undergraduates, graduate students, and professionals around the world. Paulsen has played an instrumental role in Notre Dame’s partnership with the Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders, the flagship program of the US Government’s Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI). First through the Pulte Institute and now through the McKenna Center, Notre Dame has served as a YALI partner since 2013, welcoming 25 of Africa’s brightest emerging leaders to campus each summer for a six-week leadership institute sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.

Paulsen’s human-centered approach puts the people most affected by the issues her work addresses at the core of the planning and implementation process. In 2023, she was honored with a University of Notre Dame Presidential Achievement Award for being “a role model who embodies all of the University’s core values.” Before joining the Pulte Institute, Paulsen served as an assistant director at Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business Gigot Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, where she helped launch a Microventuring Certificate Program for undergraduate business and nonbusiness to provide technical and other consulting services to low-income entrepreneurs. Paulsen holds a master’s degree in nonprofit administration from Notre Dame and a bachelor’s degree in English and philosophy from Assumption College.  

Courses