Since 1993 Melissa Nelson has served as the executive director and president of The Cultural Conservancy, an indigenous rights non-profit organization based in San Francisco (http://www.nativeland.org). This fall, Melissa Nelson joined the faculty of the American Indian Studies Department in the College of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University as an Assistant Professor. Melissa is also a writer, researcher, and activist who focuses on the protection and restoration of indigenous lands and cultures.

In 2000, Melissa completed her dissertation, “Towards a Postcolonial Ecology: Native Americans and Environmental Restoration,” for a Ph.D. in cultural ecology from the University of California at Davis. Her doctorate program combined the fields of conservation, restoration ecology, and Native American Studies to examine the link between biological and cultural diversity and to articulate an indigenous vision of environmental justice and cultural restoration.

In 1999 - 2000 Melissa taught Ecological and Native American Studies at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco (http://www.ciis.edu) and has lectured at other colleges and universities around the San Francisco Bay Area.

Melissa has also been involved with the deep ecology and ecopsychology movements and worked with philosopher Arne Naess at UC Santa Cruz and author Theodore Roszak editing The Ecopsychology Newsletter. Having a strong background in religious studies and environmental philosophy, Melissa is deeply committed to finding “upstream” cultural solutions to environmental problems. She is trained in communication and facilitation from the Indian Dispute Resolution Services and has spent ten years experimenting with the group process of dialogue as proposed by the late physicist and philosopher Dr. David Bohm, who was a personal friend.

Melissa has published articles and essays in various journals such as Orion Magazine, Restoration & Management Notes, ReVision Journal, Abya Yala News, The Trumpeter, and Turtle Mountain Times. In 1999 one of her essays, “Becoming Métis,” was published in the anthology, At Home on the Earth-Becoming Native to our Place, edited by David Landis Barnhill (University of California Press, 1999). This same essay will also appear in the forthcoming anthology, The Colors of Nature, edited by Lauret Savoy (Milkweed Press, 2002). In the fall of 2000, two of her other dissertation chapters were published: “Contemporary Native American Responses to Environmental Threats in Indian Country,” co-authored with Dr. Tirso Gonzales for the anthology, Indigenous Traditions and Ecology: The Interbeing of Cosmology and Community, edited by John Grim (Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard University Press, 2000) and “Constructing a Confluence,” for the Terra Nova anthology Writing On Water, edited by David Rothenberg and Marta Ulvaeus (MIT Press, 2000). In 2001, Melissa co-authored an essay, “Storyscape: the power of song in the protection of native lands” with Philip Klasky for Orion Afield Magazine. Currently she is writing for and editing a special issue of ReVision Journal on indigenous language revitalization. This issue will be out in Fall 2002. Melissa also just completed writing and consulting for a PBS web site on Native American storytelling, Circle Of Stories, which will be launched worldwide in October (www.pbs.org/circleofstories).

Melissa currently serves on the board of directors of the Cultural Conservancy, the Golden Gate Biosphere Reserve and the Interfaith Center at the Presidio. She also serves on the Community Advisory Council for the Crissy Field Center in the Presidio National Park. Melissa is on the editorial board of Revision, a Journal of Consciousness and Transformation. She is a former board member of Earth Island Institute and the Collective Heritage Institute and served as an associate producer for their annual Bioneers Conference from 1999 – 2001 (www.bioneers.org).

In terms of awards and achievements, Melissa received Highest Honors for her independent major in Integrated Ecology from UC Santa Cruz in 1991. In 1994 she was awarded scholarships from the American Indian Graduate Center and the Native American Scholarship Fund. In 1995 she received a UC Davis Public Service Research Bioregional Grant; in 1996 she was a Switzer Environmental Fellow; in 1997, a UC Davis Research Mentorship Recipient with bioregional writer/photographer David Robertson; and in 1999 and 2002 she received Switzer Environmental Leadership Awards (www.switzer.org) for her work with The Cultural Conservancy. In the governmental and nonprofit sectors Melissa has received awards, honors, and scholarships to participate in work related to the United Nations Environmental Program, the Biodiversity Convention, Pew Scholars for Conservation, National Parks Conservation Association, National Trust for Historic Preservation, Natural Resource Conservation Service, and UNESCO's Biosphere Reserve program.

Her current work focuses on California Indian land restoration and cultural revitalization. She is currently consulting with the Kashaya Pomo Tribe, the Southern California Tribal Chairman’s Association, members of the Southern Paiute Nation, urban Indians, Tibetans, and Pacific Islanders living in the San Francisco Bay Area, and environmental groups on the West Coast.

Melissa is an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians and is of mixed-blood heritage: Chippewa (Ojibwe) and French (Métis) from her mother and Norwegian from her father. She was born and raised in northern California. Melissa and her partner, composer and musician, Colin Farish, (www.stillwatersound.com) live and work in the San Francisco Bay Area.