The Art of Change Agency Lead Coach & Consultant

Lead Coach & Consultant

Dr. Mel Michelle Lewis is an environmental arts & humanities thought leader, scholar, writer, and transdisciplinary artist deeply committed to ensuring systemically marginalized voices are central to shaping the future of environmental stewardship. Dr. Mel is the inaugural Executive Curator (ED) of Root to Flourish Collective, promoting interconnectedness between people and nature and cultivating a racially-just conservation, climate, and environmental movement through empowered leadership and community care. Dr. Mel is also Lead Coach & Consultant with The Art of Change Agency, supporting just and joyful ways of working, leading, writing, and creating. They teach environmental humanities and queer ecologies at Maryland Institute College of Art and support Planet Women’s 100 Women Pathway program as a facilitator. Dr. Mel serves as the board chair of Orion Magazine: Nature and Culture and is a board director with River Network and Greens REALIGN. Rooted in the Gulf South’s folklore, dialect, foodways, music, spiritual practices, and environmental justice landscapes, Dr. Mel’s creative work explores nature writing themes through the lens of Black, Creole, and AfroIndigenous knowledges. Their book Biomythography Bayou is available via The Griot Project Book Series at Bucknell University Press. Dr. Mel's writing and art can be found in academic and creative writing journals and anthologies, including About Place, Artlines, Queer Nature, Women & Language, WSQ: Black Love, and Feminist Formations. Their forthcoming poetry and installation art project Waterbody is supported by American Bird Conservancy‘s Afrofuturism Collective and Re:wild.

MPP Public Policy Certificate, Concentration: Environmental Policy, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth

PhD Women’s Studies, Concentration: Bodies, Genders, and Sexualities, University of Maryland, College Park

MA Women’s Studies, Concentration: Black Women’s Studies, University of Maryland, College Park

MS Women’s Studies, Concentration: Public Policy, Towson University

BA Women’s Studies and Sociology, Meyerhoff Arts Scholar: Dance, Creative Writing, Goucher College

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Website photo credit: Adela C. Licona