LCDR Melissa de Vera
EPAC Rules Subcommittee Vice Chair
LCDR Melissa de Vera, P.E., is the District Engineer for the Indian Health Service, Division of Sanitation Facilities Construction, Minnesota District Office in Bemidji, MN. She is an enrolled member of the Rocky Boy’s Band of Chippewa Cree and tailored her undergraduate education towards her goal of working as an environmental engineer for the Indian Health Service. She started her USPHS career as a JRCOSTEP in 2011 for the Reno District Office where she worked on surveying and drafting for a watermain project for the Big Pine Tribe of the Owens Valley during the summer of 2011. She also traveled to Kenya, Africa, to help two communities hand drill drinking water wells that same summer. LCDR de Vera commissioned into the USPHS in 2013 at her first duty station in Bemidji, MN, as a junior field engineer. LCDR de Vera has be an active EPAC volunteer since 2015 on multiple subcommittees – Recruitment & Retention (R&R), Career Development, Public Health Engineering Practice, and Rules. Notably, she was the R&R Connector Program Coordinator from 2015 through 2020 prior to becoming an EPAC Voting Member.
LCDR de Vera deployed as a member of Team 2 for the Navajo Nation COVID-19 Water Access Mission during the assessment and design phase. Her team designed 51 transitional watering points to benefit homes without access to piped water in an effort to reduce the spread of COVID-19 through increasing access to potable water for handwashing and cleaning. LCDR de Vera graduated from Penn State with a Master of Engineering Management in 2019, and she graduated cum laude from the University of Nevada-Reno with a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Engineering in 2012. She is a Professional Engineer registered in her home State of Nevada.
Additional Information
Page Last Modified on 1/25/2023
