Monika Schmelz earned her MS in Biology from the Karl Ruprecht University of Heidelberg, Germany. She then obtained her PhD in Cell and Tumor Biology from the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg working with Werner Franke on desmosomal glycoproteins. She then completed her postdoctoral training with Gareth Griffith at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory EMBL) in Heidelberg investigating vaccinia virus-host interactions. In 1998, she moved to the University of Arizona in Tucson working with Ray Nagle in the Department of Pathology on prostate cancer research. In 2000, she was promoted to Assistant Professor and in 2015 to Associate Professor.