Melissa Meyer was born in New York City, where she currently lives. She has had 40 one-person exhibitions and has been included in numerous group exhibitions throughout the United States and worldwide.

She has received two National Endowment for the Arts grants in painting, two New York Foundation for the Arts grants in painting, a Rome Prize Fellowship from the American Academy in Rome, and numerous Yaddo Residency Grants since 1974

. Her most recent residency was at the Liguria Study Center, part of the Bogliasco Foundation in Genoa, Italy, in 2005.

Melissa Meyer’s public commissions include two large lobby murals entitled Woodward Looking East, 40 x 50 feet, and Skowhegan Blue Floating World

11 x 60 feet, for the Kevin Roche Dinkeloo & Associates designed Shiodome City Center in Tokyo, Japan in 2003; a 30 x 60 foot Atrium banner at the Queens Hospital Center in Queens, New York, in 2004; and two large paintings for the Dawn Princess Cruise Ship in 1997.

Her teaching and visiting artist positions have included the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Skowhegan, Maine in 2002,

The Cooper Union, New York City, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island, and since 1993 she has been a faculty member at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. In the Spring of 2005 Meyer was a visiting artist at the Royal Academy of Arts and the Slade School of Fine Art, in London. Her artwork, essays and interviews have appeared in several publications including Abstract Painting: Concepts and Techniques by Vicky Perry, Watson/Guptill Publications, New York, 2005; The Art of Encaustic Painting, by Joanne Mattera,

Watson-Guptill Publications, New York, 2001; and Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art, UC Berkeley Press, 1996. In 1997, the Mezzanine Gallery at the Metropolitan Museum of Art published a facsimile entitled "Sketchbooks: 1993-1995"

. Melissa Meyer's paintings and works on paper are included in many public and corporate collections including The Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, The Brooklyn Museum, and the Jewish Museum, all in New York City.