Melanie Thernstrom (born June 30, 1964) is an American author and contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine who frequently writes about murders and crime.

After her death, Thernstrom reported on it for The New Yorker,[3] traveling to Ethiopia and obtaining access to Tadesse's diaries which described her struggles against growing mental illness and her failed attempts to get help from the University.

[4] In 1999, Thernstrom wrote a lengthy Vanity Fair article on murdered college student Matthew Shepard.

[5] Her pieces in the New York Times Magazine have included ones on the Lord's Resistance Army in Northern Uganda,[6] narrative medicine,[7] physical pain,[8][9] high-end matchmakers,[10] divorce,[11] fugitives,[12] and a personal essay on losing an art inheritance.

[13] Her work has also appeared in New York magazine,[14] The Wall Street Journal, Food & Wine,[15][16] Travel + Leisure, Elle, and other publications.