Melissa Kenney

Background & Expertise

Melissa A. Kenney, PhD, is the director of research and knowledge initiatives and research professor of environmental decision support science at the Institute on the Environment. In this role, she provides strategic leadership for IonE’s interdisciplinary research enterprise, advancing collaborative initiatives across faculty, staff, systemwide campuses and external partners to support research that addresses major sustainability challenges. Kenney's scholarship is in environmental decision support science, an interdisciplinary field that examines how uncertain scientific information and societal values can be integrated to inform complex environmental policymaking. Her research draws on integrated socio-environmental and decision models and synthesis, decision analysis, information design and visualization, and public policy to improve the processes and tools that support evidence-based decision-making related to weather and climate hazards, climate adaptation and mitigation, ecosystem resilience, interdependent infrastructure, and water resources management. She leads multidisciplinary teams that work with federal agencies, communities, and academic collaborators to co-develop participatory decision-making processes and decision support tools to increase the use of scientific information in public and private sector decisions. Kenney's work has resulted in more than 80 publications, reports and datasets; over $40 million in awarded grants across more than 40 projects; and more than 200 invited presentations, including talks at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and White House events featuring her research findings. This research has also contributed to research-to-operations impacts, including evidence-based improvements to the design and communication of NOAA forecast products used by millions of users a month. She has contributed to three U.S. National Climate Assessments. Previously, Kenney held research faculty appointments at the University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins University and was an AAAS Science and Technology policy fellow. She earned a PhD in water quality modeling and decision analysis from Duke University and a BA in environmental sciences from the University of Virginia.