Melissa Milner was born and raised in Massachusetts and graduated from Salem State College in 1991 with a Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education and a minor in Theatre Arts. With no teaching jobs available upon graduation, she was recruited out to CA to teach. While there, she got her Masters in Curriculum and Instruction. Melissa then returned to teach in Massachusetts in 2000. 

Melissa is an avid podcast listener and curator of teaching ideas. She sees teaching metaphors everywhere. After reading A Long Time Ago in a Cutting Room Far, Far Away: My Fifty Years Editing Hollywood Hits—Star Wars, Carrie, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Mission: Impossible, and More by Paul Hirsch, Melissa was inspired to start this podcast. The many teaching parallels in the book energized her to want to start her own podcast.

The Birch Meadow Way podcast is a project Melissa produces with teachers and students in her school. She is also the cohost of the podcast Ponzinomics 101 with Robert FitzPatrick.