Melissa Melby
Professor University of Delaware
- Newark DE
Melby's research examines the ways in which environmental factors interact with human development to result in health outcomes.
Media
Social
Biography
Melby's research examines the ways in which environmental factors, broadly conceived to include physical, biological, and sociocultural influences, interact with human development to result in health outcomes. She has conducted research in Japan for over 20 years on topics ranging from aging and menopause and maternal child health to understandings about nutrition and food education and complementary and alternative medicine. She is currently conducting research on public understandings of the microbiome.
From 2019-24, Melby served as co-director of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) Humans & Microbiome Program, and is currently a fellow. She was formerly the Coordinator for Population Health Initiatives in the College of Health Sciences at the University of Delaware.
Areas of Expertise
Media Appearances
Beyond COVID
UDaily online
2021-11-03
In recent years, scientists like the University of Delaware’s Melissa Melby have been sounding the alarm about what is sometimes called “the hygiene hypothesis” — the effect of intensive sanitizing and increased use of antibiotics on the microbes that we carry on our skin and in our guts.
Menopause myths, debunked
UDaily online
2025-10-16
In Japan, women experience fewer menopausal symptoms, take less hormone replacement therapy and report smoother transitions into older age than their Western counterparts. The difference isn't genetic — it's cultural, linguistic and medical, according to UD anthropology professor Melissa Melby, who has spent almost three decades studying the topic.
Expert Shares Why Japanese Women Have Less Severe Menopause Symptoms
Newsweek online
2025-03-12
Melissa Melby, Ph.D., a professor with the Department of Anthropology at the University of Delaware, spoke to Newsweek about Konenki. Melby has conducted research in Japan for more than 20 years, including on aging, menopause and maternal child health.
Articles
Microbial inoculants and invasions: a call to action
Trends in Microbiology2025-10-15
Microbial inoculants are increasingly used for beneficial purposes in agriculture, bioremediation, and medicine, but they can carry risks of generating invasive microbes. Here, we present a roadmap for guarding against these invasions, proposing developing (i) coherent mechanistic understandings of how microbial inoculants can effect invasions, (ii) predictive models forecasting microbial invasion risks, and (iii) effective management strategies.
“The Littlest Creatures that Live Inside Us”: Public understandings influencing microbiome-related behaviors
Social Science & Medicine2025-07-01
The impact of behaviors on the microbiome, and in turn its effects on health, are increasingly recognized by the scientific and medical communities. Yet little is known about public understandings of the microbiome and the relationships with health.
Public Health Microbiome Curriculum: Looking Below the Tip of the Iceberg for Approaches to Population Health
Microbial Biotechnology2025-06-14
We discuss the opportunity for public health microbiome curricula to bridge the gaps in knowledge that exist between microbiome researchers and the lay public. We propose equipping public health professionals, important facilitators of public outreach and behaviour change, with three public health curriculum modules focused on breastfeeding, antibiotics and diet.
Addressing Antimicrobial Resistance by Changing Our Relationships with Microbes
Delaware Journal of Public Health2025-04-30
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global health problem, but it is only the ‘tip of the iceberg’ of microbial disruption caused by antibiotics. Under the surface, cultural factors such as understandings of and attitudes toward microbes may play a significant role influencing relationships between humans and microbes.
Reframing Aging: Insights from Biology and Culture of Midlife Japanese
Routledge2025
How do we age? Why do we age? How and why does menopause happen? Do different cultures have different approaches and attitudes to, and experiences of, aging and menopause? Reframing Aging: Insights from Biology and Culture of Midlife Japanese uses a biocultural framework to try to answer these questions, and gain insights on aging and menopause in Japan, the United States, and beyond.
The potential importance of the built-environment microbiome and its impact on human health
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences2024-04-25
There is increasing evidence that interactions between microbes and their hosts not only play a role in determining health and disease but also in emotions, thought, and behavior. Built environments greatly influence microbiome exposures because of their built-in highly specific microbiomes coproduced with myriad metaorganisms including humans, pets, plants, rodents, and insects.
Education
Reed College
B.A.
Chemistry
1992
University of Cambridge
CPGS
Chemistry
1993
University of Cambridge
MPhil.
Geography (Environment and Development)
1995
Emory University
M.A.
Physical and Biological Anthropology
2000
Emory University
Ph.D.
Medical Anthropology
2007
