Melinda Richards (b. 1970) was born in Wurzburg, Germany, while her father was stationed with the U.S. Army, but grew up in California, Utah, and Colorado. She speaks Russian fluently and holds degrees from Brigham Young University, Middlebury College and Indiana University.

Richards served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Ukraine from November 1991- May 1993. Upon completion of her mission, she returned to BYU, graduating magna cum laude with University Honors with Bachelor of Arts degrees in music and Russian. Her honors thesis, "Musical Life in Post-Soviet St. Petersburg as Seen Through Composer’s Eyes," received a superior rating and was published in abbreviated form in "Insight," the BYU Honors Program Journal.

Richards worked four years at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University. While there she completed a master’s program in Russian at the intensive four-summer, language-immersion program at Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont. Then completed a full-time master’s program in public affairs at Indiana University’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Bloomington, Indiana.

Since January 2007, Richards has been the program director for Firefly, Inc. a non-profit organization based in Washington-DC. Where they are working on child welfare reform in Russia (www.fireflykids.org).