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Award-Winning Journalist - Host - Social Media Personality - Adjunct Lecturer

Her work has been featured in "The Source Magazine" "Nikewomen.com" The Houston Chronicle's "29-95.com" "AthletesLiveHere.com" "Medill Reports Chicago" "Rivet Radio" "Dunk360.com" and Comcast Sportsnet's "Csnmidatlantic.com"

She has appeared on the streaming digital channel Redstormsports.com, ESPN's "SportsNation," New York TV Pilot "4 The Record" and Chicago's 87.7 The Game.

Born and raised in Houston, Texas, Melissa started modeling for a local Texas agency at the age of 16. Realizing her confidence in front of the camera tied with her passion for telling stories, she put her focus on becoming a successful broadcast journalist with dreams of going to college in New York City.

After being accepted to St. John's University in Queens, Melissa made her way to New York in 2005 on an academic scholarship. There she continued her involvement with sports as a walk-on to the St. John's cheerleading team. Melissa also played intramural volleyball and basketball throughout her college years. She graduated in 3.5 years as an honor student majoring in Journalism with a minor in International Studies. During one of her last semesters, she decided to “discover the world” and studied abroad in France, Spain and Italy.

Her television experience included hosting St. John's University sports segment, Sportswire, on WRED-TV. As far as her internship experience, it included working for CBS College Sports/Powerade, documenting her campus's intramural sports and interviewing student athletes. She also interned with WABC-TV "7 on Your Side" and Entertainment Tonight/The Insider. She wrote feature and entertainment articles as a staff writer for her university's campus newspaper, The Torch, until she became an intern at The Source Magazine. Working hard throughout that particular journey allowed her to be published as part of the magazine's first time launch of “The Fashion Report,” a comprehensive list of the top 30 brands in urban fashion.

With hopes of gaining further opportunities, Melissa entered a nationwide competition with Nikewomen.com and was chosen among thousands to help cover New York City as a Nike Field Reporter-Correspondent. Her stories took her from the ESPN campus in Bristol, Connecticut to a NCAA Division I women's basketball game in Oklahoma City for the Kay Yow Foundation.

At the same time, she balanced being a sideline reporter for St. John's University's collegiate sports including men and women's basketball with RedStormSports.com StormTracker All-Access, streaming live interviews with players and coaches. She freelanced for CBS Sports, working such events as March Madness and The NFL Today. Her stories covering professional athletes were published on AthletesLiveHere.com.

Her list of interviewees range from Olympic athlete Kara Goucher, ESPN anchor Hannah Storm to artists such as Kel Spencer and Shade 45 Sirius XM’s DJ Statik Selektah as a segment host on TV pilot 4 The Record.

Melissa added Rice University's Susanne M. Glasscock School of Continuing Studies English/Grammar certificate program to her educational experience in 2012-2013. In 2014 - 2015, she was accepted into Medill - Northwestern University's Sports Immersion Program.

Since beginning her graduate studies at Medill - Northwestern, Melissa appeared on The Dylan & Doyle show on Chicago's WGN-Radio station, 87.7 The Game doing local and national sports updates. She also spent time in Chicago producing/writing radio news and features with the streaming smartphone radio app, Rivet Radio.

By the end of 2015, Melissa started her role as a digital producer at Comcast Sportsnet-MidAtlantic in Washington, D.C. It wasn't until early 2016 when she was able to fulfill her dream of working in higher education. Her lectures on communications are part of an accredited course at the College of Mount Saint Vincent, in the Bronx, New York.

In the spring of 2016, Melissa was invited to the final round of the national search for the 2016 Ailes Junior Reporters Charlie Team at the Fox News Channel headquarters in New York City.

By 2017, she brought her talents back to New York City with her position as a News Reporter/Editor at The Tablet, a weekly Catholic newspaper based in the Diocese of Brooklyn that is distributed around the country. As the youth page editor, she revamped the newspaper's youth page and recruited young students around the Diocese of Brooklyn to write monthly columns for the paper. In that role, Melissa also oversaw the annual High School Newspaper awards with journalism clubs in Brooklyn and Queens.

Her recent role in 2023 as a reporter for Community Impact Newspaper has her covering several city governments, businesses, transportation and education stories, among other beats in Harris County. She is still involved with high school journalism as a fill-in judge for Texas' University Interscholastic League (UIL) journalism competitions.

She is an active member of the following associations:

Society of Professional Journalists

Houston, At-Large Board Member (October 2023-September 2024)

Association for Women in Sports Media
Journalism & Women Symposium
Asian American Journalists Association

A lover of all things food and culture driven, if Melissa is not on the scene or traveling, she's curling up to a great read with her husband and their puppy, Gigi.