Melissa J. Elbaum grew up in the rural suburbs of north Denver. Raised by a single, working mother, Melissa and her brother were latchkey kids with unhindered freedom to roam the semi-bucolic neighborhood in search of misadventure. Thanks to an anonymous teacher who recommended her for an academic summer program at Stanford and Yale, Melissa graduated high school early and worked at a law firm in downtown Denver to save money for college. Melissa attended the University of Colorado at Boulder where she earned her baccalaureate in the school of Arts and Sciences, majoring in philosophy and graduating cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa (National Honors Society). Her honor’s thesis, Setless, wrestled with realism as it pertains to set theory. 

Following her graduation ceremony, and itching for a bit of mischief, Melissa packed her things into a moving truck and traversed the Rockies and the desert, setting up in California. She spent the next two years living and working in Los Angeles and began to dabble in film and film writing, working for a time at Sony Pictures Studios. 

Melissa returned to academics and attended the University of California in San Diego where she earned her masters in philosophy. Her graduate thesis focused on the history of logic, Kant, and truth. On the rare occasion she wasn’t in the library or assistant-teaching an undergraduate class, Melissa surfed in the Pacific on her longboard and wrote her first feature screenplay, Paradox, depicting the bios of four philosophers–Socrates, Descartes, Wittgenstein, and Russell.