Melissa Wilson Wilder

In my twenties, as a public school teacher, I became a mom to my foster mom. Eventually, I adopted my foster child, Sarah Jewelann. Then, fifteen years later, I had a baby! In the interim, my work focused on two primary areas: saving large wild landscapes and building the human-nature connection. Currently, I am working on bold strategies to save half the Earth for other species and rewild Homo sapiens.

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In 2019, I was awarded the “Dean’s Outstanding Thesis Prize” at Harvard University and graduated from their sustainability program with a Master of Liberal Arts. I also hold a master’s certificate in resource management, a second master's degree in environmental education, and a bachelor's degree in outdoor education. Secondly, I hold a Mentor Teacher certificate from Harvard's Graduate School of Education and a certificate in developing maker spaces from MIT. I have 22 years of teaching experience in both higher education and preschool-twelfth grade education. 

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I became a school innovator, ​following two Category-5 Hurricanes in 2017. Hearing about the devastation, I moved to Virgin Islands National Park to help rebuild Gifft Hill School, a preschool-12th grade school. There, I developed green infrastructure and created green STEM career pathways. In 2020, I moved to Santa Barbara to become a STEM Faculty and later the Director of Academic Innovation at the Riviera Ridge School. My work focused on building STEM and Arts programming.

 

In 2020, my documentary "Stay Wild" was admitted into eight film festivals and won three environmental awards. In 2023, I was awarded the Santa Barbara Environmental Teacher of the Year. 

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My favorite days are spent along the edge of the ocean, overlooking far vistas, hiking steep peaks, getting lost in the back woods, or paddling through a creek or mangrove. I happily live in the gateway to Channel Islands National Park and am excited to bring green education to Ventura!