Melissa Hafer

Melissa Hafer is the student and program support specialist with the Department of English.  She has been a member of the Hokie family since 2019, and found her place here in 2025.

Melissa first joined Virginia Tech in the Services for Students with Disabilities (SSD) Department as a C-Print captionist for deaf and hard-of-hearing students. Being in the classrooms with the students, she found a number of classes decidedly interesting. Her favorite classes were in the area of linguistics, including social factors, features of pronunciation, etymology, and how the English language has changed over time. She is also especially interested in history in general.

Melissa enjoys reading books of various genres, including fantasy, science fiction, mysteries/thrillers, biographies, true crime, and historical fiction and non-fiction. Among her favorite books, which are too numerous to list, are Terry Brooks' “Landover” series, “Watership Down,” “Macbeth,” the “Harry Potter” series, mysteries by Mary Stewart, Ursula K. Le Guin's “Earthsea” series, and the “Tripods” series by John Christopher.

Prior to joining Virginia Tech, she previously worked for law firms as a legal assistant, help desk administrator, and transcriptionist in New York, New Jersey, and South Carolina.

Melissa loves going to Roanoke Rail Yard Dawgs hockey games, auctions, and flea markets, as well as spending time with her family and cats.