This is a little about me. While I often work solo, I also love to partner with colleagues on consulting engagements. A consulting duo or team can bring a helpful mix of perspectives, experience, expertise, and identities to the work - not to mention more joy and collaboration!
Melissa Extein, Psy.D. brings over 20 years of experience consulting to organizations. Her work applies theories of psychodynamics, emotional intelligence, group development, leadership, and embedded intergroup relations to guide organizations to understand themselves better and implement changes to improve organizational and individual well-being and effectiveness. Guided by these theories, Melissa’s approach to any engagement includes an examination of organizational dynamics related to identity (e.g. gender, race, age), power, and authority. She works with clients as partners, jointly participating in the creation of knowledge and the development of solutions. Her clients have included start-ups, foundations and other grantmakers, government, schools and universities, networks, advocacy campaigns, and non-profits inside and outside the US.
A lifelong educator and learner, Melissa currently teaches Strategic Leadership and Innovation as a Part-Time Faculty member at Marist University and has taught organizational assessment and diagnosis, leadership, and group dynamics to graduate students and executives at Columbia University, The New School, and the University of Pennsylvania over the past 15 years. Some of her teaching is as a member of the Wynford Institute, a group dedicated to creating spaces for healing and learning through experiential education and organizational consultation. She is also a member of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations.
Melissa holds a Psy.D. in Organizational Psychology from the Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology at Rutgers University and a B.A. from Yale University. She has working proficiency in Spanish. She lives with her 6-year-old daughter in Brooklyn, NY, where they dance, sing, bike, make art, and play together.