Melissa Sevigny

Melissa L. Sevigny is an American science journalist and author. She works as a science writer for Arizona Public Radio. A native of Tucson, Arizona, she was heavily interested in science as a child, participating in multiple science fairs which led to a love of astronomy. This resulted in her working at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory (LPL) and being involved with the Phoenix space probe during its Mars landing. Following her graduation with a Master's writing degree, she went into science journalism and published multiple books on the history of science and ecology in the Arizona area. Her books have won a number of awards and nominations.

Childhood and education Having grown up in Tucson, Arizona, Sevigny gained an interest in science and ecology while observing the Sonoran Desert. She wanted to become a geologist, but after entering a science fair at 14, she won both an asteroid and a trip to a Hawaiian astronomy camp. Her subsequent astrological interests saw her enter annual science fairs with her projects aimed at subjects involving Mars. During her junior year at Pueblo Magnet High School, one of the judges for the fair was Pat Woida from the Phoenix Mars Lander team, who invited her to be a part of the project.

Her second book also in 2016 was titled Under Desert Skies and discussed the history of the early moon missions from Tucson where Gerard Kuiper established the LPL with NASA funding. The book covered the beginning years of the LPL and was created by Sevigny after a request by Mike Drake, former director of the lab, to help preserve the "memories of LPL scientists who worked with Kuiper to establish the lab." Because of this, she ensured her focus was on the real characters themselves, wanting to contain their "personalities" within her work. She first used the research material to publish a long-form article in Atavist Magazine before getting a full book signed for publication. In addition to the journal and letters that Jotter kept, and to a lesser extent the sensationalist media coverage from the two botanists' contemporary time period, Sevigny also decided she needed first hand experience on their journey. Thus, she joined a botany research group in 2021 that took a rafting trip along the Colorado through the Grand Canyon to help clear invasive Ravenna grass.

Awards and honors In 2005, Sevigny was given The Flinn Scholarship by the Flinn Foundation to support her undergraduate work. Her book Mythical River was, prior to its release, given the 2015 Ellen Meloy Desert Writers Award, which included a $3,000 grant to fund further work on the book, and was later a nominee for the 2017 Flagstaff Viola Awards.

Her third book, Brave the Wild River, was given a National Outdoor Book Award in History, was named one of the Best Books of 2023 by the New Yorker, was placed on the 2024 longlist in nonfiction for the Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction, was bestowed the Reading the West Award in memoir and biography, was chosen by the Arizona State Library as a 2024 Southwest Books of the Year Top Pick, was selected as a 2023 Top of the List winner by Booklist, and was conferred an honorable mention in the 2024 Rachel Carson Environment Book Awards from the Society of Environmental Journalists.