Méléard grew up in Picardy as the daughter of two high school biology teachers, and was already aiming for a career as a mathematician by the time she was ten years old.

She studied at the Lycée Janson-de-Sailly and, from 1977 to 1981, at the École normale supérieure de Fontenay-aux-Roses [fr], where she became known for knitting during lectures.

[1][2] After earning her agrégation in 1981,[2] she completed her doctorate in 1984 at Pierre and Marie Curie University under the supervision of Nicole El Karoui.

[1][2] With Vincent Bansaye, Méléard is the author of Stochastic Models for Structured Populations: Scaling Limits and Long Time Behavior (Springer, 2015).

[6] In September 2018, a conference on population dynamics was held at the Institut Henri Poincaré in honor of Méléard's 60th birthday.