Melissa F. Kaelin
Writer, Artist & Stargazer
About this speaker
Melissa F. Kaelin is an aurora chaser, author and community leader. She founded the Michigan Aurora Chasers, a group of nearly 100,000 members, and she co-founded the annual Aurora Summit, an international conference celebrating the art, culture, science and photography of auroras.
As a NASA Social Media Ambassador, she covered the 2020 launch of the Solar Orbiter, a spacecraft launched to study and better understand our sun. In November 2024 she will lead a tour of Iceland and the northern lights as a staff expert for the University of Michigan.
Melissa has written about rare natural phenomena for many publications, her aurora chasing advice is quoted by Dark Sky International, and she has presented many talks on aurora mythology, aurora forecasting and night sky adventures. In 2022 she published the book Below the 45th Parallel: The Beginner’s Guide to Chasing the Aurora in the Great Lakes Region
