An author and public speaker, Melissa F. Kaelin has been chasing the Northern Lights for over 13 years. She is the founder of the Michigan Aurora Chasers, a group of about 130,000 members and climbing, and the co-founder of the annual Aurora Summit, an international conference celebrating the art, culture, science and photography of the Aurora.
In 2020, she was selected as a NASA Social Media Ambassador to cover the launch of the Solar Orbiter, a spacecraft launched to study our Sun. In 2021, she began leading a “Live Chase” of the Northern Lights on active nights, escorting hundreds of people to their first Aurora sighting. Now, she has helped thousands of people to catch the Aurora for the first time, and she has published a guidebook for beginners. The 2nd Edition of the guidebook, “Beyond the 45th Parallel: The Beginner’s Guide to Chasing Aurora in the Mid-latitudes,” was released on July 5, 2024.
Melissa has written about rare natural phenomena for many publications, her Aurora Chasing advice is quoted by International Dark Sky Parks, and she has presented many talks on Aurora Mythology, Aurora Forecasting and Night Sky Adventures. She has also served as a staff expert for the University of Michigan Alumni Association on an international tour of Iceland and the Northern Lights. She has been interviewed for USA Today, NPR, iHeartRadio, and Thrillist, as well as many other media outlets.
