Melissa Mannke graduated from the University of Massachusetts Amherst with a bachelor's of nursing degree in 2005. 

She spent the next 5 years working as a registered nurse on inpatient cardiac units and then went on to graduate school at Columbia University to pursue a career as a nurse practitioner. 

She specialized as an adult and women's health nurse practitioner and graduated in 2010. 

Since graduating, she has practiced in a private internal medicine practice and student health clinic at Northeastern University in Boston. She is particularly interested in health promotion, disease prevention, and women's health.