Professor Melissa Ann Palacios was raised in Bayard, New Mexico.  She joined the U.S. Naval Reserves in 1990 where she served with the Seabee Amphibious Construction Battalion Two in Little Creak, Virginia. She attended San Antonio College and completed her degree at the University of Texas at San Antonio where she received a Bachelor’s of Political Science with a Minor in Legal Studies, and Public Administration in 2004. She completed her Masters in Political Science in 2012 with an emphasis in Public Law and Political Theory. She currently works for Collin College in Plano, Texas and Richland College in Dallas Texas.