Director of The Research Institute


345 N Monmouth Ave
Monmouth, OR 97361

Robyn Lopez Melton is the Director of The Research Institute at Western Oregon University (TRI) providing leadership and direction to the four TRI Centers with annual grant expenditures of approximately $14 million. Under Robyn’s leadership, TRI has maintained and expanded multiple long-term contracts with Oregon’s Department of Early Learning and Care to implement major components of Oregon’s early learning system including, Spark, Oregon’s Quality Recognition and Improvement System, the state network of Oregon’s Child Care Resource and Referral and Child Care Substitutes of Oregon, an innovative new system that hires and places substitutes in child care programs across the state. Additionally, during Robyn’s 20-year career in Early Learning, she has served her community as a home visitor, parent educator, ECE trainer, early educator, and interventionist in various roles at a local CCR&R agency and at a nonprofit child abuse prevention program.

Lopez Melton has a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies, another BA with a focus in Culture, Humanities and Politics of the Americas and a Master of Science in Education with a focus in Information Technology and a certificate in Instructional Design. She has extensive volunteer and board governance experience. Highlights of which include serving as Board President of the Oregon Association for the Education of Young Children, Chair of the National Association for the Education of Young Children Affiliate Advisory Council, and her current role as a Child Care Aware of America board member. Robyn was recognized in 2015 as an Exceptional Emerging Leader in Early Childhood by Exchange Press. Robyn is bilingual and her commitment to justice, equity, diversity and inclusion is driven in part by her experiences as the mother of two bicultural, Latino/a children and the wife of an immigrant.