Melody Hammel
Instructional Developer and Programmer
About Melody Hammel
Melody Hammel joined the Department of Online and Strategic Learning part-time as a Technical Assessment Developer in 2024, and moved to full-time as an Instructional Developer and Programmer in 2026. A developer since high school, she brings a perspective on computers and technology that looks at them from the inside rather than the out. She has a unique enthusiasm for tech, and that passion leads to a practicality-focused approach to solving problems. She's experienced in both low-level and high-level coding, front-end and back-end, and has a penchant for perfectionism and polish.
Melody received the award for the Critical Thinking category in the Midwest Association for Student Employment Administrators’ Student Employee of the Year rankings, and graduated summa cum laude from Ball State University's Computer Science program with a minor in Japanese language. During her time as a student, she worked as a research assistant for Dr. Lan Lin, exploring software testing and best practices. She also served on the Student Dean's Advisory Committee representing the Computer Science department.
When she's not at work, she can be found (if you're lucky) making music, playing video games, or talking someone's ear off about Pokémon.
Professional Experience
- Instructional Developer and Programmer (2026 - Present). Division of Online and Strategic Learning, Ball State University
- Technical Assessment Developer (2024 - 2026). Division of Online and Strategic Learning, Ball State University
- Quality Assurance Engineer (2021 - 2023). National Science Foundation CyberWater Project, Ball State University
Publications and Presentations
- Melody L. Hammel, Lan Lin, Just Enough Software Engineering for Domain Scientists in Research Software Development. In: Proceedings of the 4th Interdisciplinary Conference on Electrics and Computer (INTCEC), Chicago, IL, 2024
- Melody L. Hammel, Lan Lin. 2023. Assuring domain software quality through workflow testing and specification. In: Proceedings of the 35th International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering (SEKE), 37-44
- Levi T. Connelly, Melody L. Hammel, Lan Lin. 2023. Leveraging best industry practices to developing software for academic research. In: Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Management Engineering, Software Engineering and Service Sciences (ICMSS), 7-13
- Levi T. Connelly, Melody L. Hammel, Benjamin T. Eger, L. Lin. 2022. Automated unit testing of hydrologic modeling software with CI/CD and Jenkins. In: Proceedings of the 34th International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering (SEKE), 225-230
Education
BACHELOR OF SCIENCE (BS) IN COMPUTER SCIENCE, 2023
Ball State University