She received her B.S. summa cum laude in applied mathematics-statistics and economics (double major) from Stony Brook University where she was a Minority Access to Research Careers (MARC) National Institutes of Health (NIH) Fellow. She received her M.S. in biostatistics from the Harvard School of Public Health where she was an Initiative for Minority Student Development (IMSD/NIH) Fellow. Melody received her Ph.D. from the Department of Biostatistics at Harvard University with minors in theoretical statistics and the social determinants of health disparities. She was a National Institute of Child Health and Human Development NIH Minority Pre-doctoral Fellow.