Melissa Noel is an award winning multimedia journalist. She produces television as well as print and online stories for several notable media outlets including NBC News, Voices of NY, Huffpost.com and Caribbean Beat Magazine. Recognizing the absence of regular Caribbean/Caribbean Diaspora coverage in mainstream U.S. news media, Melissa regularly travels to the region as well as to cities with large Caribbean populations throughout the U.S., to report stories on mental health, entrepreneurship, immigration policies and practices, tourism, culinary arts and several other topics as related to the Caribbean region and its diaspora.
Both domestically and internationally, she is dedicated to researching, writing, producing, and editing news stories that center on the experiences and critical issues impacting communities of color. It’s a journey she began over a decade ago as co-host of the Island Hoppin show on WHBC 830M, Howard University Radio and as a news writer for WHUR 96.3FM where she reported on news stories from the Caribbean region and West Africa. Recently, Ms. Noel was named a 2017 International Center For Journalists, Bringing Home The World International Reporting Fellow and a USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism National Fellow. She also received the CUNY Graduate School Of Journalism alumni award for Best National Story for her piece, Black and Undocumented: Caribbean Immigrant’s Long Fight For Citizenship, one story in a series which shed light on issues facing black immigrants in America. Ms. Noel’s commitment to bringing attention to underreported stories earned her the 2016 International Labour Organization’s Global Media Competition for her piece, Migration and Separation: Stories of “Barrel Children” discussing issues of parental separation due to migration in the Caribbean and the diaspora.
Her dynamic global diaspora coverage was also recognized by Congresswoman Yvette Clarke when she was honored as a 2016 Shining Star Journalism Awardee and by former U.S. President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama as a 2009- 2010 White House Correspondents’ Association journalism award recipient. A proud first generation Guyanese American, Melissa Noel is committed to providing holistic stories of the Caribbean and Caribbean diaspora through her news coverage.
She is a summa cum laude graduate of Howard University where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in broadcast journalism and holds a Master of Arts degree in journalism from The City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate School of Journalism.