Melissa Kaye was born and raised in New York City. She has an undergraduate degree in computer science from MIT and a master’s degree in computational finance from Carnegie Mellon University. After years of working in finance as a quantitative strategist, Melissa decided to take a different direction and pursue a lifelong interest in jewelry. She started her foray into jewelry design by completing the jewelry design program at FIT. Melissa Kaye Jewelry was launched shortly thereafter.