Melissa has been a journalist for over two decades, starting her career as a reporter covering health and religion for fifteen of those years. She has worked as an editor for eight years including the previous seven years at the Press Telegram before joining the Long Beach Post staff in June 2018. She serves as a part-time lecturer at Cal State Long Beach where she teaches multimedia journalism and writing. She hails from Gilroy, Calif., the garlic capital of the world and the only thing she enjoys more than breaking a story is seeing the Dodgers breakdown in the playoffs. When she’s not gently reminding reporters of style and punctuation errors, she’s treating them to scrumptious home-baked goods. She has one cat, a plump orange-and-white boy named Sam. We’re unsure if Sam has also been eating the baked goods.