Melissa is currently working on her B.S. degree in meteorology. During the summer of 2009, she completed an internship as a NOAA Hollings Scholar at the National Weather Service in Fort Worth, Texas, where she researched the short-fuse weather requirements of emergency managers and first responders. The project she submitted won second place at the NOAA Hollings Symposium for the oral National Weather Service presentations in July 2009.

Funded by the NASA Nebraska Space Grant, Melissa is now using MODIS and CALIPSO satellite data to study the 3D transport of smoke transport from Central America to Texas.

Now a graduate student at Univ. of North Texas with full scholarship.