Melissa Lesh founded Emerging Earth Films in 2014 as a way to bridge the arts and sciences, focusing on wildlife and conservation stories. Her previous film, Person of the Forest, was a partnership with National Geographic depicting newly discovered cultural behaviors in wild orangutans in Borneo. Since the film’s premiere, it has screened at over thirty-five film festivals around the world, been viewed 2.3 million times through National Geographic’s online platform and received a Vimeo Staff Pick. More recently, Lesh contributed cinematography to the feature-length film The Story of Plastic that aired on Discovery for Earth Day in 2020 and won an Emmy in 2021.

Lesh is a 2019 Sundance / Sandbox Films grantee and 2022 artist in residence at the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, New York. She is currently directing, producing and editing a feature-length film for Amazon Studios. Born in Mumbai, India she now calls Richmond, Virginia home.