Before joining the Project, Melissa supported students at Eastern New Mexico University providing personal and career counseling; enhanced her curiosity in scaling innovation and reducing silos in the Higher Education Innovation Fellowship with Switchboard; and elevated diversity, equity, and inclusion with the Center for Diversity & Inclusion at Washington University in Saint Louis. In addition to roles in higher education, Melissa also supported the Denver urban Indian population in her role with the Denver Indian Family Resource Center; championed tribal sovereignty with the National Indian Child Welfare Association; and held administrative positions with Native American Bank in Denver, as well as in the corporate mortgage and finance sectors. In 2019, Melissa served as a Visiting Fellow with Harvard's Administrative Fellowship Program.

Melissa completed a Master of Business Administration with an emphasis on American Indian Entrepreneurship in 2022 from Gonzaga University. She also holds an MSW with a concentration in American Indian and Alaska Native populations with an emphasis on policy from the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in Saint Louis, where she was a Buder Foundation Scholar, and a BA from the University of Colorado Colorado Springs. Melissa is a citizen of the Navajo Nation.