Growing up in the populated suburbs of New England, Melissa DiNino's imagination would drift through the two-acre forest outside her bedroom window. She found her best friends in a pack of German Shepherds, took horseback riding lessons at a family friend's farm, and explored the arts in a home decorated with her mother's watercolor paintings. As a long-legged child, she excelled in basketball from a young age and was encouraged to set aside other interests to prioritize developing her skills. Even so, her most formative memories were off the basketball court and far from city limits at her great-grandparents' log cabin on Sebago Lake in Maine, where she spent time each summer amongst the spring peepers and ruby-throated hummingbirds.

When it came time to attend college, Melissa received a merit-based scholarship to pursue her bachelor's degree in biology in Connecticut, as well as a spot on the basketball team as the starting center. It was during these years that she also began working for an environmental education nonprofit dedicated to the conservation of wolves, putting her within reach of the top carnivore biologists and giving her a view into the deep-rooted conflict with wolves around the world. Realizing a life working alongside wolves was attainable, even for someone miles away from a wild wolf population, Melissa ended her collegiate basketball career to dedicate her life's work to human-wildlife conflict prevention.