Melissa DeGezelle is an adjunct professor of writing and humanities. She is an activist and labor organizer, currently bargaining for a part-time faculty union at Temple University. She serves as Co-Chair of the Racial Justice Committee of The United Academics of Philadelphia. She works as a birth doula and a patient advocate at a women's center. She teaches medical students how to perform consent-based, feminist sexual health exams. She is a poet and a single mother.