“Her experiments are creative and thorough. She is an excellent scientific thinker as well as a top-tier
experimentalist.” – Colleague
“Melissa is working on a problem that is scientifically very exciting (food poisoning), yet relatively few
are looking at the problem the way Melissa is addressing it, on the role of host microenvironment and
ethanolamine, and how ethanolamine might modify intrinsic properties of the bacterium itself. This is
likely to lead to really novel and exciting findings and Melissa is at the forefront of the field in many ways.”
– Colleague
“Melissa exemplifies the collaborative tradition that is a hallmark of UVa. She has been immensely helpful to
my lab and many others in terms of providing expertise, reagents, and in simply talking about experimental
approaches to biological questions.” – Colleague