Melissa completed a BEng (Hons) in Civil & Environmental Engineering at Heriot-Watt University in 2013; and PhD with the Centre for Sustainable Road Freight on the theme of human factors in logistics in 2019, when she explored the trajectory of future truck technology from 2015 to 2050, and the corresponding training needs of drivers.  This resulted in the first ever Hierarchical Task Analysis for Commercial Driving, the user-centred design of technology implemented by a leading truck manufacturer, and a short driver training course which significantly improves drivers’ CO2/mi impact by approximately 5%.

Melissa’s research interests also include transport safety, data use, organisational psychology, and urban infrastructure. She is currently a Postdoctoral Research Associate on the EPSRC Water Resilient Cities project which assesses projected future hydro-hazards, and their impacts on the UK’s urban areas.