Melanie Sanford received B.S. and M.S. (1996) degrees from Yale University and a Ph.D. (2001) from the California Institute of Technology. She was a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University (2001-2003) prior to joining the faculty of the University of Michigan, where she is currently Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Chemistry. Her scientific articles have appeared in such publications as the Journal of the American Chemical Society, Organometallics, and Tetrahedron.