Melissa Soderberg started her tenure as Columbus Academy’s eighth Head of School in 2013. She arrived from Minneapolis, where she worked as the upper school head, director of college counseling, dean of students, history teacher and coach at Breck School for 20 years, and before that for five years as assistant college counselor, dorm parent, history teacher and coach at St. George’s School in Newport, Rhode Island. A graduate of Sunset Hill School (now Pembroke Hill) in Kansas City, she earned a B.A. from Middlebury College and was selected for the regional (New England) All-America team in field hockey. Her M.A. was earned at Teachers College, Columbia University as a Joseph & Esther Klingenstein Fellow.
At Columbus Academy, Mrs. Soderberg has overseen doubling growth in the endowment, a $20-million campaign, multiple facilities improvements in the arts, athletics, technology and innovative classroom spaces, and initiated the school’s 2016 and 2025 Strategic Visions in which the school has focused on schoolwide community partnership initiatives, excellent and innovative teaching and learning practices, developing the school’s 231-acre campus as an open classroom, and establishing comprehensive work on cultural competency and the well-being of students.
She serves as Regent of District VI of the Cum Laude Society and is an Executive Coach through Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute (CA). Presently she is a member of the Executive Committee of the Heads Collegiate Forum and a council member of Malone Online Schools Network.
Throughout her career at Columbus Academy, she has served as treasurer on the board of the Independent Schools Association of the Central States (ISACS), as board chair of the Student Participatory Action Research Collaborative (SPARC) -- connected to the University of Pennsylvania -- and as board chair for the Ohio Association of Independent Schools (OAIS). In addition she has enjoyed 10 years of working as a faculty member of both the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) Institute for Aspiring Heads and Institute for New Heads (NAIS), helping to identify and mentor the next leaders in independent schools. Mrs. Soderberg is a member of the Heads and Principals Association, the Headmistresses Association of the East.
Her husband, Dr. John Soderberg PhD, is Associate Professor of Archaeology at Denison University. They have two sons who graduated from Academy: Angus '18, a graduate of Kenyon College ‘22, and Philip '20, a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University ‘24.
- B.A. Middlebury College
- M.A. Columbia University
