Melanie Becker was originally from Germany but grew up in Malaga, Spain where She graduated from Instituto Nacional de Enseñanza Mixto de Torremolinos in 1987. She received her Diplom in physics focusing on String Theory from the University of Bonn in 1994 while working with Werner Nahm. She simultaneously worked with Luis Álvarez-Gaumé at the particle accelerator at CERN when earning her Diplom. Following her Ph.D, Melanie Becker was in California first as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Santa Barbara until 1997, when she transitioned to the California Institute of Technology as a senior research fellow working with John H. Schwarz. In 2000 she moved to the University of Maryland as an assistant professor marking the start of her independent academic career. In 2005 she moved to Texas A&M University where she was given tenure on arrival and became a member of the George P. and Cynthia Woods Michell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy.