Melissa Lesh, with Trevor Frost, directed the documentary Wildcat – about a British soldier with PTSD and an American scientist who together raise an ocelot to release back into the wild – which is now available to stream on Amazon Prime. She founded the production company Emerging Earth Films as a way to bridge the gap between the arts and sciences, focusing on natural history and conservation stories. Her first award-winning documentary, James River Sturgeon, was a collaboration with scientists to uncover the uncharted migration of the endangered Atlantic sturgeon. Lesh is the co-director and editor of Person of the Forest and has worked for such clients as Nat Geo Wild, National Geographic magazine and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Lesh was born in Mumbai, grew up in Madison, Wisconsin, and lives in Richmond, Virginia. (Photo by Berkley Nestler.)
