Meldrum was born on 24 May 1958 in
Salt Lake City. He received his
B.S. in
zoology specializing in vertebrate
locomotion at
Brigham Young University in 1982, and his
M.S. at BYU in 1984. In 1989, he completed a
Ph.D. at
Stony Brook University in anatomical sciences, with an emphasis in
biological anthropology, with
John G. Fleagle as his doctoral advisor. He held the position of postdoctoral visiting assistant professor at
Duke University Medical Center from 1989 to 1991. Meldrum worked at
Northwestern University's Department of Cell, Molecular and Structural Biology for a short while in 1993 before joining the faculty of
Idaho State University where he taught until his death. Meldrum published numerous academic papers ranging from vertebrate evolutionary morphology, the emergence of bipedal locomotion in modern humans, and the plausibility behind the
Sasquatch phenomena, in addition to being a co-editor of a series of books on
paleontology. Meldrum also co-edited
From Biped to Strider: The Emergence of Modern Human Walking with Charles E. Hilton. Meldrum, who was an "active member" of
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also studied and commented upon issues of genetics and the
Book of Mormon in his book
Who Are the Children of Lehi?, written with Trent D. Stephens. Meldrum died in Pocatello, Idaho, after a brief battle with brain cancer, at the age of 67, in 2025. His date of death is reported variously as 9 September ==Cryptozoology==