Melissa Kops is a licensed Architect, is LEED and Living Future Institute Accredited, and is a Certified Passive House Designer. She is Architect for the City of New Haven, where she designs and manages municipal building projects and advises on sustainability initiatives. New Haven’s city-owned buildings and fleet are slated to transition to all-electric by 2030. She also serves as the municipal representative to CT State’s Energy Efficiency Board and teaches a course about Green Buildings at the Yale School of the Environment.

As the chair of BuildGreenCT’s advocacy and equity community, she serves on many sustainability working groups, provides technical presentations and public comments regarding the state’s climate planning and proposed green building legislation, and organizes the biennial Northeast Summit for a Sustainable Built Environment (NESSBE).

Melissa’s commitment to a sustainable built environment has been recognized with a Judy Swann Green Advocate Award from the CT Green Building Council in 2018. She was named a 2020 Living Future Hero by the International Living Future Institute, and in 2022 she received the CT Chapter of the American Institute of Architects President’s Award.