Dr. Mel Michelle Lewis

Dr. Mel Michelle Lewis serves as the inaugural Executive Curator of Root to Flourish Collective, cultivating deep relationships and promoting interconnectedness between people and nature. Their work ensures systemically marginalized voices are central to shaping the future of environmental stewardship. Dr. Mel is a conservation sector thought leader, scholar, writer, and transdisciplinary artist deeply committed to amplifying critical voices and creative visions for structural change, sustainable practice, environmental justice, and social transformation. Originally from Bayou La Batre, Alabama, Dr. Mel’s transformative justice approach is grounded in the lessons of the Gulf South’s lands, waters, cultures, and cherished Ancestral lineages.

Dr. Mel’s academic background is rooted in environmental humanities, Black queer theory, Black feminist thought, and ethnic studies with an emphasis on movements for liberation and systemic change. Previously, they provided strategic guidance for the future of clean water as Vice President for People, Justice, and Cultural Affairs at American Rivers, leading organizational transformation equity initiatives. They have co-chaired environmental movement coalition work, including America the Beautiful for All’s Freshwater Workgroup and Uncommon Dialogue's Workforce Diversity Workgroup. They also recently held the role of Affiliated Researcher with the Penn Program in Environmental Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Mel was Associate Professor and Director of the Ecosystems, Sustainability, and Justice Program, co-founder of The Space for Creative Black Imagination: An Interdisciplinary Making and Research Institute, and Chair of the Humanistic Studies Department at Maryland Institute College of Art where they continue to support interdisciplinary learning. They chaired the Center for Geographies of Justice, the Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Department, and Africana Studies Department at Goucher College, as well as the Department of Ethnic Studies at Saint Mary’s College of California. They’ve earned a PhD, MS, MA, MPP certificate, and BA in multiple interdisciplinary justice based fields.

In addition to their professional life, Dr. Mel is a writer and artist whose creative work depicts life in rural coastal settings through the lens of Black, Creole, AfroIndigenous, and queer embodied knowledges. Their transdisciplinary visual and performing art features ancestral altars, installations, and photography. Their research and creative writing appears in top journals, anthologies, and creative writing publications; their book Biomythography Bayou is available via The Griot Project Book Series at Bucknell University Press and their forthcoming project Waterbody is supported by American Bird Conservancy‘s Afrofuturism Collective and Re:wild. Dr. Mel is deeply committed to meditation, conjure and Ancestor veneration, southern foodways, and community mutual aid practices. They live in Baltimore on Piscataway and Susquehannock lands with their wife and a clutter of free range community alley cats.