Melissa Browning was a theologian, ethicist, and activist who studied community-based responses to injustice. Melissa taught seminary students at Columbia Theological Seminary, Mercer University's McAfee School of Theology, and Loyola University Chicago's Institute of Pastoral Studies.

For 20 years, Melissa's study and fieldwork were tied to East Africa. Her book, Risky Marriage: HIV and Intimate Relationships in Tanzania, built on fieldwork completed in Mwanza, Tanzania, where women were asked to re-imagine Christian marriage as a space of safety and health for women. She took students on immersion trips to East Africa and worked with congregations and non-profits in the region. 

Melissa was deeply committed to social issues closer to home. She was active in death penalty abolitionist work in Georgia and worked as an organizer in the #KellyOnMyMind collective - a public clemency campaign for Kelly Gissendaner. Melissa was committed to helping students and congregations understand the deeper issues surrounding mass incarceration, the death penalty, and systems of structural violence (such as racism or poverty). Melissa also contributed toward progressive movement-building work by leading the Atlanta Justice Ministry Education cohort through Auburn Seminary in New York.

Melissa was an ordained minister and welcomed the opportunity to preach and teach in service to the church. Her final research project, funded by the Louisville Institute, used grounded research to examine how churches can be (or neglect to be) catalysts for social change.

Melissa was married to Wes Browning, a documentary filmmaker and the owner of Sema Films. Their amazing daughter sports skirts, superhero capes, and an endless imagination.