After graduating from the University of Maryland, College Park with a BA in English and another one in German, Melissa moved to Essen, Germany to teach English for companies such as Coca Cola and RWE. Two years later, she returned to the States and, after a brief stint at Borders Books, felt inspired to return to literature full time, thus she enrolled at California State University, Long Beach and earned an M.A. in German literature and a Minor in Russian. Her thesis was on uncovering the “uncanny” elements in W.G. Sebald’s “The Emigrants”. Believing the more degrees, the better, Melissa is currently working on her PhD in German with a DE in Film at UC Berkeley. Her areas of specialization include Contemporary German Film and Madness and Psychology in 20th Century Literature and Film. For three years, she organized the bi-weekly German Film Series and in 2008 she co-organized the 16th Annual German Studies Conference, “Rebellion and Revolution” with Priscilla Layne. Along with learning, Melissa is passionate about foreign language pedagogy. With six years of college-level teaching experience, she has presented lesson plans on incorporating film in the foreign-language learning classroom at various pedagogy workshops (AATG and at UC Berkeley) and is the proud recipient of the 2007-2008 Graduate Student Instructor Award. Melissa will be back in the teaching world next summer for the 2009 German Summer School in Taos, (UNM). She is currently employed as the German Language Program Assistant Coordinator.