Her clinical expertise is in geriatrics and long-term care, with a particular focus on caring for older adults with Alzheimer’s disease. During her 28-year career, she has worked as an administrative Registered Nurse (RN) in skilled nursing facilities, practiced as a family nurse practitioner (FNP) across long-term care settings, taught undergraduate and graduate students in aging, and conducted Alzheimer’s research. She is board-certified as a Gerontological RN and a Family Nurse Practitioner.

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Dr. Batchelor’s program of research focuses on improving nutritional outcomes for older adults with dementia by teaching caregivers to use different handfeeding techniques to increase meal intake (MelissaBPhD.com/NOSH). Her research has been supported by the John A. Hartford Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Nurse Faculty Scholars program, and the National Institute of Health/ National Institute for Nursing Research. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing (FAAN) and the Gerontological Society of America (FGSA). As a 2017-2018 Health and Aging Policy Fellow, she served the United States Senate Special Committee on Aging in the office of Senator Susan Collins (R-ME).

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In March of 2020, she started a podcast called This is Getting Old: Moving Towards an Age- Friendly World (TiGO) focused on issues related to aging, with an emphasis on raising awareness about the policies and programs that are not in place to effectively deal with an aging global population. Her YouTube Channel has over 30K Subscribers and nearly 4M views and the podcast is ranked in the top 10% globally. Additionally, she is the co-author of a book published by SLACK Incorporated, LLC in August 2022 titled #Socia/Media in #Healthcare: A Guide to Creating Your Professional Digital Presence in which she shares her journey and experiences in learning how to use digital technology to effectively to reach beyond traditional dissemination venues for her research, teaching strategies, and health policy.