Melissa Rooney is an author, editor and educator with a focus on reuniting Science with the Arts and Humanities. She is available for readings of her children’s books (live and zoom) and presentation of hands-on, science-based educational workshops at public and private schools, libraries, museums, festivals, corporate events and birthday parties.

Melissa’s Bio:

After receiving undergraduate degrees in English and Chemistry from the College of William and Mary, Melissa Rooney studied electrochemistry under the direction of R. Mark Wightman at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and was awarded her Ph.D. in Chemistry in 1998. From 1999-2002 she conducted research in the laboratory of Alan M. Bond at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. She was awarded a Post Doctoral Fellowship from the Australian Research Council for 2000-2003.

In 2002, she returned to North Carolina to raise her family with her husband. Since then, she has blogged and written for NC newspapers and has published children’s stories and verses in Highlights Children’s Magazine, Bay Leaves, and numerous other serial publications and anthologies. Her children’s stories, Beyond the Dark, Milk Drinkers turning to Powder, and Counting on Me  won first place in the Stories for Children and Children’s Poetry categories in the 2009 and 2016 Burlington Writers Contests; and her verse Hope was awarded first place in the Traditional Poetry Category of  the Poetry Council of North Carolina in 2009.

Eddie the Electron and The Fate of The Frog form the basis of two workshops offered through the Durham Arts Council‘s Culture and Arts in the Public Schools (CAPS) program, through which Melissa teaches elementary and middle school students about electrons and atoms or sustainability and rhyme, respectively.  Her third CAPS workshop, entitled The Australian Didgeridoo and the Science of Sound, introduces youth to the oldest visual and musical art forms (practiced by Australian Aborigines) and the hard science that enables them.  For her involvement in public education, she received the inaugural Durham Public Schools’ Get Involved! award in 2011.

When she is not writing creatively or engaging youth, Melissa provides contract scientific editing for Durham-based American Journal Experts, freelance editing for new authors, grant writing and implementation for Durham Public Schools, and her time and advocacy as an Associate Supervisor on Durham’s Soil and Water Conservation District.

Melissa’s full curriculum vitae can be viewed here: http://www.melissarooneywriting.com/MBR_CV_Lit_2021.pdf.