Melissa's initial impression of audiology revolved around performing hearing tests and dispensing hearing aids, but she has learned there is so much more to the field! In her current work, she primarily sees patients with hearing loss that are followed in the ENT at the hospital adjacent to the Fondation de l'AP-HP. The foundation uses a wide range of clinical tools to evaluate hearing loss, speech perception, and other auditory capabilities, and focuses on finding new ways to evaluate patients and the efficacy of their treatment. A part of Melissa's work is to develop such methods, which includes testing the methods on research participants, utilizing her strong background in research methodology.
Melissa has fond memories of her time at SFU. She was very involved in the SFU community and enjoyed being surrounded by people who were passionate about linguistics yet who were taking their studies diverse directions. She encourages current students of linguistics to "think outside the box...if you have a special skill or interest there is almost certainly a way to leverage that within the field, and find an area of specialization that you really love."