Melissa Phillips is a Registered Seed Technologist (RST) and Senior Technical Lead for seed physiology testing at Bayer Crop Science. She has been employed at the Waterman Illinois Seed Physiology Lab since 2011 as part of the former Monsanto seed testing lab. Her previous role was a Seed Analyst at a large private laboratory for 8 years before relocating to Illinois. Melissa is the current Vice-President of the Society of Commercial Seed Technologists (SCST) and is also a member of the Germination Committee in the International Seed Testing Association (ISTA). She holds a bachelor’s degree in Agriculture from South Dakota State University and has a master’s degree in Plant Science from Virginia Tech.