Presenter: Dr. Melissa Rooney

Topic: Incorporating Sustainable Stormwater Management in Public (& Private) Education

Location Grandin CoLab, 1327 Grandin Road SW

About Melissa:

After receiving undergraduate degrees in English and Chemistry from the College of William and Mary, Melissa Rooney earned her Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill in 1998. She was awarded a fellowship from the Australian Research Council and conducted Chemistry research at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, from 1999-2002. In 2002, she returned to North Carolina to raise her family. Since then, she has worked as a contract editor and freelance writer and has published stories, poetry, and columns in newspapers, serial publications, anthologies, and picture books.

Her children’s books Eddie the Electron and The Fate of The Frog form the basis of two workshops Melissa provides to elementary and middle school students through a Durham program called Culture and Arts in the Public Schools (CAPS). For her involvement in public education, she received the first “Durham Public Schools’ Get Involved!” award in 2011.

For the last eight years, Melissa has served as an Associate Supervisor on the board of Durham’s Soil and Water Conservation District, where she has mostly assisted with writing grants to install “Best Stormwater Management Practices” (BMP’s) throughout Durham County, including rainwater-collecting cisterns (giant rain barrels), rain gardens, and stream restorations (to stop stream banks from being washed away). Many of these projects are designed and installed by public high-school teachers and students through a program initiated by Durham’s Soil and Water Conservation District