Melissa Sevigny
Science & Technology ReporterMelissa joined KNAU's team in 2015 to report on science, health, and the environment. Her work has appeared nationally on NPR and has been featured on Science Friday.
Before joining KNAU, Melissa worked as a science communicator in the fields of space exploration, Western water policy, and sustainable agriculture. She was the education and public outreach specialist for the Phoenix Mars Mission, which landed on Mars in 2008. She has a bachelor's degree in environmental science from the University of Arizona and a master of fine arts in environmental writing from Iowa State University.
She grew up in Tucson, Arizona, where she fell in love with the ecology and geology of the Sonoran desert. She enjoys hiking, reading and gardening.
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AI-powered cameras are the newest thing in fire detection on Arizona’s Coconino National Forest. Some greet the technology with optimism. But others worry about the future of the HUMAN fire lookouts who have kept watch for decades. -
American culture was obsessed with Martians in the early 1900s. In a new book, bestselling author David Baron explains how this “alien craze” started with one astronomer in Flagstaff. -
The Four Corners potato fed people 10,000 years ago and now the ancient, nutrient-packed spud is drawing new interest. -
No one expects to see trees that look like jewels in the high desert of Arizona. But that’s exactly what visitors find in the Petrified Forest National Park – ancient logs preserved for millennia by a process that transfigured them into rare and beautiful stones. -
A Coconino County resident died of a rare case of pneumonic plague earlier this month. Dave Wagner, director of Northern Arizona University’s Pathogen and Microbiome Institute, spoke about the life cycle of plague and his research team’s efforts to develop a vaccine. -
The Grand Canyon community is reeling from the loss of the Grand Canyon Lodge on the North Rim from the ongoing Dragon Bravo wildfire. Former park ranger Jessica Pope lived there for nearly a decade and shares this remembrance. -
An NAU research lab has published an open-source guide for building an exoskeleton that helps people with various medical conditions move their joints more freely. -
A childhood story about the disappearance of a Costa Rican toad sent Trevor Ritland on a quest. The Flagstaff writer and documentary filmmaker tells the story in his new book, out today. -
Scientists are using the Barringer Meteor Crater near Winslow to test equipment that might one day fly to the Moon. -
Local agencies have a new tool to speed up wildfire response — AI-powered cameras. Arizona Public Service plans to install 30 by the end of June.
