Melis is a doctoral student at the IDEA and SCAN public. She received her BA in Neuroscience from Pomona College and started her doctoral studies at UCLA in Fall 2020. Melis is interested in integrating neuroimaging (fMRI) and magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) methods to investigate the neurobiological mechanisms that underlie sensory over-responsivity in ASD. Through her work, Melis hopes to eventually bridge ASD research in humans and animal models and provide insight into the etiology of the disorder.