A Tennessee native, Melanie Gregory studied Wildlife and Fisheries Science and Zoology at the University of Tennessee and was a founding member of the Tennessee Herpetological Society before joining Zoo Knoxville as a keeper in the Department of Herpetology. There, under the mentorship of respected herpetologist Bern Tryon, she spent the 1990s caring for the Zoo’s large and diverse chelonian collection and assisting Bern with his longtime field studies of bog turtles in North Carolina and Tennessee.
Her love for field work took Melanie to the world of environmental consulting, and from 1999 through today, Melanie has led, advised, or participated in many hundreds of field studies of North American bat and herp species, and honed her knowledge of the laws and regulations governing natural resources in the United States. She also pursued graduate studies in reptile ecophysiology at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and collected anatomical and physiological data from turtles and tortoises at multiple zoos and research institutions as part of a study of chelonian comparative physiology.
Melanie Gregory is currently a Senior Vice President with SWCA Environmental Consultants, managing over 600 technical specialists and overseeing offices from Maine to Montana. After more than 30 years in the field, she still gets great satisfaction from encountering wildlife in its natural environment, and from mentoring the next generation of field biologists.
