Though she has an advanced degree in marine biology, Melinda’s experience with molecular techniques brought her to the SGE team last year. Her oceanic expertise is still being put to good use – she is also working on using a marine tunicate (Ciona robusta) as a model organism for deep mutational scanning. After she’s done troubleshooting experiments for the day, she can be found outdoors either hiking or volunteering as a beach naturalist for the Seattle Aquarium.