Lt Col Melissa McLain is currently an Intermediate Level Education (ILE) Fellow at the Institute for Future Conflict and an instructor in the department of Military and Strategic Studies (MSS) Instructor at the U.S. Air Force Academy.

McLain earned her commission through the U.S. Air Force Academy in 2009 with a B.S. in Human Factors Engineering. She has supported 9th Bomb Squadron, B-1B operations at Dyess AFB in Abilene, Texas. McLain then worked at the Blue Horizons Fellowship at Maxwell AFB, Montgomery, Alabama. In this position she developed war games to complement the curriculum and conducted classified research for the fellows. She was then charged by the CSAF to stand up an Emerging Technology Office in Washington, D.C. based upon one of the fellow’s approved proposals. In her most recent assignment, McLain worked as a Squadron Director of Operations for two years, followed by the Group Director of Operations at Fort Gordon in Augusta, Georgia. In these roles she ensured mission execution of SIGINT missions spanning the globe and designed the 16 AF/CC approved Cryptologic Strategy. In the fall of 2024 she will pursue a Ph.D. at the University of Colorado, Boulder.