Melissa R. Bowers, is the Beaman Professor of Business in the Haslam College of Business at University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Her teaching and research interests include Production Planning and Scheduling, Supply Chain Optimization, Lean Manufacturing, Lean MRO, Theory of Constraints, Visualization, and Applied Discrete Optimization Models. She served as the Vice President of Education for the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) from 2019 to 2022.

Bowers has worked with organizations such as ALCOA, Phillips Petroleum, Delta Air Lines, Air New Zealand, Embraer, Hanesbrands Inc., the United States Air Force, Boeing, the University of Tennessee Medical Center, and Cherry Point Naval Air Base. She has published in MIT Sloan Management Review, Decision Sciences, European Journal of Operational Research, INFORMS Journal on Applied Analytics, Computers and OR, Business Horizons, Naval Research Logistics and several other academic and professional journals. Bowers was the recipient of the 2016 Allen H. Keally Excellence in Teaching Award, the 2012 and 2015 Richard Sanders Outstanding Leadership in Executive Education Award, the 2014, 2020, and 2023 MSBA Outstanding Service to Students Award, the 2011 Outstanding MBA First Year Faculty Award, and the 2023 MSBA Faculty Excellence in Teaching Award, among others. She is a co-author of the book, Lean Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul: Changing the Way You Do Business.