Melissa L. Sevigny grew up in Arizona where she fell in love with the Sonoran Desert’s ecology, geology, and dark desert skies. Her work explores the intersections of science, nature, and history. She is the author of three nonfiction books, most recently Brave the Wild River, winner of a National Outdoor Book Award and a Reading the West award.

Melissa has a B.S. in Environmental Science from the University of Arizona and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing and Environment from Iowa State University. She worked for ten years as a science reporter at KNAU Arizona Public Radio, where her stories earned national acclaim. Prior to that, she was a science communicator in the fields of planetary science, western water policy, and sustainable agriculture. She worked for NASA’s Phoenix Mars Scout Mission during its ground operations on Mars in 2008, and has an asteroid named in her honor, 28976 Sevigny.

Her work appears in The New York Times, High Country News, Orion, Arizona Highways, National Parks Magazine, and elsewhere.

In addition to freelance science writing, she edits and produces the long-running Earth Notes series for KNAU Arizona Public Radio, and serves as the interviews editor for Terrain.org. She lives in Flagstaff, Arizona.