PhD, Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Rice University, 1995
BS, magna cum laude and University Honors, Biochemistry, Texas A&M University, 1990

Melissa was a postdoctoral fellow at Baylor College of Medicine in the Human and Molecular Genetics Department and was funded through a National Institutes of Health Research Award. In 1999, she was registered before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

• US Patent and Trademark Attorney
• US Patent and Trademark Agent

• "Telomerase, Ku, and Telometric Silencing in Saccharomyces Cerevisiae," Chromosoma, 1998
• "Arabidopsis Thaliana Responses to Mechanical Stimulation Do Not Require ETR1 or EIN2," Plant Physiology, 1998
• "Plant Responses to Environmental Stress: Regulations and Functions of the Arabidopsis TCH Genes," Planta, 1997
• "Arabidopsis TCH3 Encodes a Novel Ca2+ and Shows Environmentally Induced and Tissue-Specific Regulation," The Plant Cell, 1994

• "Plant Responses to the Environment: Regulation and Function of Arabidopsis TCH3," University of Houston Southwestern Developmental Biology Conference, Houston, Texas, May 1995
• "Sequence, Promoter Analysis, and Localization of Expression of TCH3, a Calmomodulin-Related Gene in Arabidopsis Thaliana," Lost Pines Molecular Biology Conference, Houston, Texas, October 1994

• The Association of University Technology Managers
• Houston Intellectual Property Law Association
• Supervises Norton Rose Fulbright Intellectual Property Interns for Baylor College of Medicine