Melanie Harriff received her Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Biology in 2007 from Oregon State University in the laboratories of Luiz Bermudez and Michael Kent. Following a year-long postdoctoral research position in the laboratory of Gary Thomas at the Vollum Institute at Oregon Health & Sciences University, Harriff worked as a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at OHSU, in the laboratory of David Lewinsohn. She joined the Research Department at the Portland VA Medical Center as a Research Microbiologist in 2011, and is also an Associate Professor in the Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at OHSU.