Mel Ziegler began his undergraduate studies at the Rhode Island School of Design, later transferring to the Kansas City Art Institute to complete his BFA in 1978. He earned an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts in 1982. It was in Kansas City that he met Kate Ericson, his future artistic collaborator of 18 years. Together, Ericson and Ziegler made influential site-specific installations and objects concerned with mapping trajectories, questioning history, and highlighting the specificity of places and communities. After the tragic and premature death of his partner Kate Ericson in 1995, Mel Ziegler has continued to show works nationally and internationally. Ziegler earned a Loeb Fellowship for study at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University in 1996-97. He continues to lecture and exhibit throughout the United States, Europe and South America. He is currently a Professor of Art and Chair of the Department of Art at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN.