Melanie Berry, PsyD

Dr. Melanie R. Berry is a clinical psychologist and nonprofit leader with more than two decades of experience advancing equity for children and families facing adversity. Her career spans direct service, applied research, and national leadership, always with a focus on creating conditions that enable all children and families to thrive.

She began her career providing community-based services to children and families in underserved communities in the San Francisco Bay Area, then moved into applied research at the University of Oregon’s Stress Neurobiology and Prevention Lab, where she helped develop and test innovative interventions for young children facing adversity. Most recently, Melanie directed the Pediatric Innovation Initiative at Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child, leading a national collaborative to develop novel measures of stress and resilience in young children. She previously directed the Center’s Frontiers of Innovation, an international initiative to advance science-based innovation in early childhood programs and services. In that role, she spearheaded the development of the IDEAS Impact Framework, now widely used to strengthen program design and continuous improvement. Across these roles, she has set strategy, built and led high-performing teams, and convened diverse stakeholders to co-create and test science-based solutions.

Melanie earned her PsyD in Clinical Psychology from the PGSP–Stanford Consortium and her BA in Psychology from the University of California, Berkeley. Her passion for this work is deeply personal, stemming from her own early life experiences and strengthened by her professional background, which together allow her to approach the work with insight and expertise.