Melinda's areas of expertise include foundations design and design media, with an emphasis on fundamental drawings skills and hand-drawn media.  She teaches undergraduate foundations design studios, graduate foundations media, and an elective drawing course.  She has also taught intermediate design studios, with an emphasis on issues of social justice and social and environmental systems.  Her research interests have focused on the relationship between social and environmental systems and the built environment.  Her scholarly work includes conference papers that investigate issues of diversity and identity, especially as it relates to pedagogies of architectural education.  Her master's thesis, The Wheel Within the Wheel: Efficiency, Sustainability, & the Technological Network of Housing Production, investigated the relationship between efficiency arguments, sustainability, and consumption.  

In addition to teaching, Melinda is the proprietor of LEAN2creativeworks, an art and illustration studio based in Eugene.  She does a range of commissioned work and fine art, and has a line of products that includes prints, cards, stickers, t-shirts and other illustrated sundries.

Melinda holds a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Oregon (1997) and a Master of Science in Sustainable Design from the University of Texas at Austin (2006).