Melissa is an academic, designer, anti-prison organizer, and advocate for the unhoused, situated on the unceded Indigenous lands of the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabeg peoples in Tiohtià:ke/ Mooniyang/ Montreal. They are currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Cultural Studies program at Queen’s University, and also hold a M.Arch from the University of Manitoba. Melissa’s research focuses on hostile architecture in Montreal and its relationship to policing, surveillance, urban planning, and gentrification. This research is both historical and abolitionist, working to map and identify how oppressive architectural strategies in urban space have been implemented under an increasingly hostile state.