Melissa Starace, director of alumni affairs at Northampton Community College , is one of six professionals from around the world chosen to join the Commission on Alumni Relations of the Council of Advancement and Support of Education, the largest international association of education institutions in the world. Its membership includes alumni, communications and fundraising professionals at some 3200 schools, colleges, universities and institutionally related foundations in 46 countries. Starace will serve on the Commission through June of 2011.

A graduate of Notre Dame High School, Starace attended Northampton Community College and went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in sociology magna cum laude at Cedar Crest College and a master’s degree in educational leadership at Lehigh University. She is a graduate of Leadership Lehigh Valley and was recently chosen to participate in the President’s Leadership Institute at Northampton Community College where she has worked both in student affairs and in institutional advancement.

Starace has been very active in the community, serving with the Emerging Leaders of the Women’s Leadership Initiative of United Way, on the board of the Children’s Home of Easton, as an officer of the board for the Volunteer Center of the Lehigh Valley, and as a member of the Business Volunteer Council.