Melody Starya Mobley is a retired forester of the United States Forest Service, the first black female hired by the organization.
Mobley was born in 1958 in Louisville, Kentucky. She initially pursued zoology at the University of Louisville before transferring to the University of Washington to study wildlife management.
After meeting professional forester Lyle Laverty at a conference, Mobley switched her major to forest management. She was the first African-American woman to graduate with a forest management degree from the University of Washington in 1979.[1] [2]
Mobley was hired by the United States Forest Service in 1977, becoming their first black female forester.[3]
Mobley has said she was sexually assaulted by a colleague around 1978, working at a remote site in Skykomish, Washington. She disclosed her sexual assault to the agency in 1996, citing fears of not being believed and a generally racist and misogynistic work culture as reasons for not coming forward earlier. However, Mobley has since stated that nothing came of the disclosure and that the perpetrator was never punished.[4]
Mobley retired from the Forest Service in 2005 at age 46.
Mobley has since worked with the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority, or NOVA parks, on programming for black and Hispanic birders. She has also served as the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion chair for the Virginia Native Plant Society.[5]
In 2024, Mobley was chosen to receive the Diversity Leadership Award from the Society of American Foresters.[6]
Mobley is religious. She currently lives in Arlington, Virginia.[7]