About – Cubic Communications

I’m Melissa, and I’m a refugee from chemistry lab.

From my early days in grade school, I was the person my classmates would turn to when we were told to trade papers and proofread each other’s work before turning our essays in to the teacher. I always won our class spelling bee. Even when I was at university and then in graduate school, fellow students and postdocs would find me before they turned in their lab reports or finalized their presentations. (That was back in the dark ages, when overhead projectors were far more common than computer projection systems!) After school, I worked in a research lab where most of my labmates were not native English speakers who asked me to review their research reports and papers. And then lab literally made me itch and I needed to find a new job.

I started editing professionally in 1996 (on word puzzle books), and shortly afterward I began writing professionally. I’ve been the head honcho of Cubic Communications since 2001. Outside of that, I’ve also occasionally taught university courses in chemistry and physics and SAT prep courses. And I’ve also taught knitting classes and given friends informal cooking lessons—of course, writing and designing my own course materials for these!

In 2020, I was awarded certification by the Board of Editors in the Life Sciences.

As a publications guru, I’ve worked on newspaper and magazine articles, books, marketing materials, scientific papers and presentations, proposals, recipes, knitting patterns, family heirloom letters, and other documents. At varying times, I’ve been a developmental editor, copyeditor, technical editor, mindreader for non-native English speakers, proposal wizard, proofreader, layout artist and book designer, graph and chart creator, test knitter, recipe tester, and chief bottle washer. I’ve also given guest lectures and other presentations about proposals, scientific writing, and work-life balance, to technical and non-technical audiences.

If your project is on a subject not mentioned above, please don’t hesitate to talk with us. We will make sure the right person works with you.