Melissa Tsuboyama
Chief Recruiting Officer
Operations Manager
Duke University Chapter

Melissa Tsuboyama is a sophomore at Duke University majoring in Biomedical Engineering and minoring in Chinese and Chemistry. Although a new member to InnoWorks, Melissa has already served as Recruitment Chair and is presently on the Curriculum committee and Operations committee. Currently, she is a teaching fellow for the Techtronics program under the supervision of Dr. Gary Ybarra. This program engages middle school students in science and engineering with the goal of motivating minority and female students to follow a career path in these disciplines. Melissa is also a member of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) and has been involved in mentoring and tutoring at-risk students in Durham Public Schools on a weekly basis through Project Child. Specifically, she has been a mentor at the West End Community Center and at Immaculata Catholic School. Being fluent in Spanish has motivated Melissa to expand her mentoring efforts in these programs to interacting with Spanish-speaking students, especially those who are struggling with the English language. She and some of her peers are also in the process of establishing a Duke chapter for the Society of Hispanic Engineers. Additionally, she has made the Dean’s List from Fall 2004 through Fall 2005.

During the summer of 2005 she studied abroad in China where she took language intensive classes. This summer she will be performing research involving the pancreas with a surgeon at New York University whom she had previously shadowed through Duke’s Health Careers Internship Program. Upon graduation, Melissa hopes to work in a biotechnology or consulting company and ultimately attend medical school to become a surgeon.