Lt. Col. Melissa J. Milner, U.S. Air Force, is a national defense fellow and visiting scholar at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. She is a career public affairs officer, who recently served as the deputy director of public affairs at U.S. Indo-Pacific Command at Camp H.M. Smith, Hawaii. Previously she served as the commander of the 2nd Audiovisual Squadron at Hill AFB, Utah, and served as the public affairs advisor and speechwriter for the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Melissa served at the Joint Staff, the Air Force headquarters, air and space operations center, major command and wing levels. She deployed to provincial reconstruction teams in Afghanistan and to the Combined Air and Space Operations Center. Melissa earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from Louisiana Tech University. She is a graduate of the Chief of Staff of the Air Force’s Blue Horizons Fellows program where she earned a Master of Science in Airpower Strategy and Technology Integration, and is a graduate from American Military University where she earned a master's degree in International Relations and Conflict Resolution.