The Board of Regents, on its 1378th Meeting held on 23 February 2023, appointed Dr. Melisa R. Serrano as the next Dean of the UP School of Labor and Industrial Relations.

Dr. Serrano is a full professor who teaches courses on theories in industrial relations, labor and the economy, industrial relations and national development, and human resources at the national level.

The ninth SOLAIR dean initiated SOLAIR’s associate membership at the Global Labour University (GLU) Network (https://global-labour-university.org/). Thanks to her efforts of continuing the cooperation with the GLU, SOLAIR became a regular member of the network beginning 2023, joining the University of Kassel (Germany), Berlin School of Economics and Law (Germany), University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa), Rutgers University (US), Pennsylvania State University (US), University of Campinas (Brazil), and the Jawaharlal Nehru University (India).

She was an instructor (video lecturer) at the GLU Massive Online Open Courses hosted at the Springer Nature’s Iversity platform (https://glu.iversity.org/), and handled courses on Trade Unions in Transformations (March 31-April 17, 2022), Global Supply Chains in Times of COVID-19 (September-October 2020), and Subordination and Discrimination of Global Supply Chains: Recognizing and Building Unity (June-July 2022).

Serrano concurrently serves as the director of SOLAIR Center for Labor Justice. Before that, she served as the director of SOLAIR Center for Labor and Grassroots Initiatives (August 2017-December 2019), and SOLAIR secretary (October 2013-August 2016).

She was a visiting lecturer at the Center for Development and Decent Work, University of Kassel, Germany (Oct. 11, 2021–Jan. 22, 2022).

Serrano has (co)authored over 50 research outputs including journal articles, books, book chapters, booklets, monographs, and reports on labour and industrial relations. She was awarded the One UP Professorial Chair Award (2022-2024, 2019-2021 and 2016-2018); UP Diliman Centennial Professorial Chair (2024, 2023, 2015 and 2014); UP Diliman Centennial Faculty Grant (2022, 2021, 2017); and International Publication Award (2018, 2017, 2015, 2014, 2013).

She obtained her bachelor (secondary education) and master’s degrees (industrial relations) from UPD in 1985 and 2003, respectively. She earned her PhD (labor studies) from the University of Milan, Italy in 2012. Serrano also holds a master’s degree (labor policies and globalization) from the University of Kassel and Berlin School of Economics and Law (GLU), Germany in 2006.