Mela combines scholarly and creative work foregrounding social justice frameworks through public-facing writing, performance, and digital media.

She created The Millennial PhD – a podcast + blog about love, dance & revolution – to support millennial creatives share their stories and artistic vision.

As a performer, Mela has appeared on local and international stages and in a variety of music videos and digital projects. She is a principal dancer with Huracán Dance Company.

Carmela holds a B.A. in American Studies and Latin American/Latino Studies from Fordham University, and a PhD. in Sociology from CUNY Graduate Center. Her academic work focuses on everyday and popular culture, race and ethnicity, urban studies, capitalism, and media. Her work has appeared in The Journal of Popular Culture and Latino Studies.

Her research project, “The Life  and Death of Mambo: Culture and Consumption in New York’s Salsa Scene,” explores the tensions between community-building and racialized commodification in the “on2” salsa dance world. The project looks at the changing ways in which people practice, produce, and consume culture in cities. The work has been supported by the Inter-University Program for Latino Research/Mellon Fellowship, the ACLS, and CUNY’s Institute for Research on the African Diaspora in the Americas and the Caribbean (IRADAC).