Melissa is the Assistant Director for Workers’ Compensation Insurance (WCI) for the University of Texas System (the UT System). Melissa is responsible for administering the WCI Program for the academic and health institutions of the UT System. The program includes a certified workers’ compensation health care network and claims handling through a third party administrator with close oversight by the UT System. She is also responsible for administration of the system-wide unemployment compensation insurance self-insured plan. Melissa has extensive experience with the public, private and regulatory sectors of the workers’ compensation insurance industry. She started at the UT System in 1993 as a temporary employee and held several positions before becoming a lost time adjuster handling claims for institutions within the UT System. In 2000, Melissa began work for the regulatory agency and private sectors of WCI. In 2005, she furthered her career by forming a certified workers’ compensation healthcare network and participating in the creation of a 504 network involving a pool of political subdivisions. In 2007, she returned to the UT System as a Claims Supervisor providing oversight of claims handling for several of the institutions before her promotion to Assistant Director. Melissa earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Interdisciplinary Studies in 1993 and her Master of Public Administration in 2003, both from Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas. Her applied research project was “An Assessment of the 1989 Texas Workers’ Compensation Reform Act” which analyzed whether the implementation continued to meet the purpose of the legislation. Melissa serves on the board of directors for Texas PRIMA and received the Risk Professional of the Year award from them in 2016.