Michael Melino Vaka

Michael Melino Vaka has been working in the field of STEM since 2015. Michael Melino began their career as a Host at the Polynesian Cultural Center in 2015. In 2020, they became a Summer Associate at AmeriCorps, where they mentored middle school students from under-represented communities in STEM. In 2021, they were appointed Outreach Coordinator at the Society of Physics Students at Brigham Young University. Since 2019, they have been an Undergraduate Research Assistant at Brigham Young University, working in Dr. Della Corte's Lab to investigate computational methods simulating molten salts for applications in molten salt reactors. Michael Melino also assisted students in completing experiments in optics and vacuum systems, and developed MATLAB code to analyze data in Dr. Karine Chesnel's research lab for nanomagnetism. Finally, in 2022, they were appointed Data Scientist at ZONTAL.

Michael Melino Vaka attended Brigham Young University from 2019 to 2024, where they earned a Bachelor's degree in Engineering Physics/Applied Physics.