Inside The Innovations

Melissa Graves-Brook

Melissa Graves-Brook

Scientific Associate

Spallation Neutron Source

Melissa Graves-Brook is a Scientific Associate at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). A second-degree blackbelt in Fugakukai Aikido, she also enjoys needlework, arts and crafts, painting, and spending time with her family. Melissa has worked at ORNL since 2010.

Essentially, I interact with users and make sure their experiments go well. I make sure users have their samples aligned and ready for the experiment currently running or about to run. I schedule equipment so our users have the sample environments they need, and I maintain our Hybrid Spectrometer to make sure every moment of beam time is put to good use.”

“I’m 24/7 support. If something happens at midnight or 3 a.m., I’ll be there. For a lot of our researchers, these experiments may be the culmination of multiple years of work. It’s their Super Bowl. This is their time to shine and make a world-changing discovery, and my team and I are always on call to help make that discovery happen.”

–Melissa Graves-Brook