Melissa is the VP of Customer Experience for Conserv, a company that provides IPM and environmental monitoring equipment and software to conservators and collections professionals. She was previously the Samuel H. Kress Fellow in preventive conservation at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History and the Museum Conservation Institute. As a Kress Fellow, Melissa is being externally advised by Dr. Rob Waller (collections risk analyst) while completing a comprehensive risk assessment and cost-benefit analysis as a means to help NMNH make a risk-based decision on the future storage of their large vertebrate specimen currently stored on open shelving. She is a graduate (class of 2020) of the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation where she specialized in preventive conservation. She has a special interest in working with contemporary artists, visualization of environmental data, and enjoys learning about biodeterioration and ways to prevent it. Melissa has had graduate internships at the Brooklyn Museum in objects conservation, English Heritage in conservation science, and a dual appointment at the Smithsonian Museum Conservation Institute and the National Museum of Asian Art. Prior to starting graduate school she gained conservation experience at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, the Peobody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, the National Park Service at the Northeast Museum Services Center, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Winterthur Museum Garden & Library, the Western Center for the Conservation of Fine Arts in Denver, Museum Textile Services, and for several conservators in private practice in the Boston area.