Melodie Potts Rosevear has been involved with Teach For Australia since its earliest conception. Originally from North Carolina, Melodie came to Australia to serve as a founding staff member and Think Tank Coordinator at the Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership, an indigenous policy ‘action tank’ championing welfare reforms and other social policy changes designed to help remote indigenous communities to develop.

The seeds of Teach For Australia were planted as Melodie worked with these communities and became further convinced of the urgent role education must play in improving the life chances of young people in the most disadvantaged areas of Australia.

Melodie wrote the original business plan for the organization while completing her Masters studies at Harvard and travelling back and forth between Boston and Australia. Teach For Australia was launched in late 2008 and received over 750 applications. The first cohort of over 40 Teach For Australia Associates began teaching in January 2010.

Previously, Melodie was a management consultant with the Boston Consulting Group in Atlanta, Georgia, where she worked on a variety of corporate and social sector projects, including an achievement gap reduction and school reconfiguration initiative for an urban school district.

Melodie has a Bachelors degree with highest distinction in Economics and Public Policy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and received her Masters in Public Policy degree from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, concentrating on social policy and non-profit management. She now lives in Melbourne, Australia with her Australian husband. She enjoys playing sports, including Aussie Rules Football, and drinking fine wines in good company.