Melyssa joined TACC in July 2006. She currently serves as the Manager of External Relations. In this role, she oversees TACC's corporate partnerships, public relations, international partnerships, and education, outreach and training (EOT) programs. Specifically, Melyssa focuses on developing and managing collaborations between industry and academia with the Science & Technology Affiliates for Research (STAR) program. She is also developing international collaborations between TACC and its "sister" centers around the world, to promote knowledge-sharing and strengthen international research & development.

Melyssa previously served as policy director for the High Performance Computing Project at the Council on Competitiveness, where she worked to foster government-university-industry partnerships and 'spread the word' on the need for high performance computing to foster innovation in the US and keep our economy strong. Melyssa also worked as a consultant to the Coalition for Academic Scientific Computation (CASC) – of which TACC is a member -- where she tracked networking, technology and information security issues arising in Congress and the federal agencies.

Education:

M.B.A., eCommerce, Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland
B.A., Spanish, Rutgers University