Melissa Barragán Taboada is the editor of the Globe’s Great Divide education team. Prior to coming to the Globe in 2021, Taboada was a reporter and editor for 21 years at the Austin American-Statesman, where she led the paper’s education coverage. Her work also has appeared in the Texas Tribune and the Hechinger Report. Taboada taught a "Reporting on Education" course in the School of Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin, her alma mater.