Monisha is a Colorado native who brings a wealth of experience in engineering, business and international relations to the Board. Merchant is a Democrat who represents Colorado’s 7th Congressional District, where constituents elected her to a six-year term in 2008. Merchant’s international experience includes work with a nongovernmental organization in Indonesia, where, as a deputy country director, she managed multimillion-dollar, post-tsunami reconstruction projects that delivered safe drinking water to schools and homes. In Shanghai, China, she setup computer labs and taught Web design to high school students. In business school, she helped organize a Yale delegation to Nigeria and met government, corporateand social enterprise leaders advancing the African nation’s infrastructure. Recently, Merchant completed reforestation projects in Brazil’s Atlantic rainforest region, and worked to expand health care for the Lidice Quilombolas. Merchant is a product manager at Level 3 Communications. Previously, she worked as a consultant with Booz Allen Hamilton, where she advised leaders at NASA, the Department of Homeland Security, NSF, and NIH.  Merchant is a 2010 American Marshall Memorial Fellow, and serves on the Boards of LARASA and Colorado MESA. She is a graduate of MIT and Yale School of Management.