P.D. Soros Fellowship for New Americans

Melis was born in Maryland to parents from Turkey.

Melis studied at MIT, where she earned a perfect 5.0 GPA and graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering. Awarded a Rhodes Scholarship, Melis earned an MSc degree in immunology during her year at Oxford. She is now in her second year as an MD/PhD candidate at the Harvard - MIT Health Sciences and Technology Program and will begin a PhD in immunology at Harvard in the fall

Melis's research projects at MIT ranged from synthesizing nanoparticles for cancer detection to studying novel drug delivery methods. She served as editor-in-chief of the MIT Undergraduate Research Journal.Her research projects at Harvard have resulted in three co-authored papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals, five scientific papers as a first-author in MIT publications, and numerous presentations at scientific meetings, symposia and conferences.

Research Melis did during a bioengineering internship at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston earned her a place as a finalist at the 2004 Intel Science Talent Search and first prize in engineering at the Intel Science and Engineering Fair.