"Few people study Angola. My research on nation-building projects, big businesses and national identities is very important... There is nothing out there like it, which makes it really exciting."

This 2009 and 2010 second place Star is back and shining brighter than ever.

At the age of just thirteen, Melba secured a staggering £230,000 of funding for her charity, SE1 United, and remains heavily involved in the organisation.

She has spent the year completing a fully funded MSc in African studies at Oxford University through the Ioma Evans-Pritchard Scholarship.

Her graduate research took her to Angola for two months, where she conducted independent ethnographic fieldwork in the city of Luanda. She lived and worked with the local community and conducted interviews entirely in Portuguese. The former Oxford University African Caribbean Society President, who also speaks German, Arabic and Luganda, became one of only a handful of people around the world to specialise in research on Angola.

Melba hopes to continue her research when she takes up a fulltime role as a Graduate Audit Analyst with professional services firm KPMG, a position she secured through Rare.

In 2010, Melba was recognised for her outstanding academic achievements and equally impressive contributions to charity. She was invited to the House of Lords for an event celebrating outstanding alumni of St Catherine's College, Oxford. Melba was the guest of honour and dined alongside former speaker of the House of Commons, Baroness Boothroyd.

"I shall never forget that night."

Melba spent the summer teaching and performing with a group of women aged between 16 and 70 on a jointly choreographed piece called 'Turning Swords Into Plough Shares' for the War and People Festival. She has also been preparing to take a group of young people to Cuba to learn about Che Guevara. If her success so far is anything to go by, Melba looks set to have many more unforgettable nights.