Melissa Eshelman, M.D.

Melissa Eshelman, M.D., is an associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Dell Medical School. She also serves as associate director for psychiatric services at the UT Austin Counseling and Mental Health Center.

Eshelman earned her medical degree from UT Southwestern Medical School in Dallas. She completed psychiatry residency training and child and adolescent psychiatry fellowship training at Los Angeles County and University of Southern California Medical Center in Los Angeles. She served as chief resident during her child and adolescent psychiatry fellowship. Eshelman completed her forensic psychiatry fellowship at the USC Institute for Psychiatry, Law and Behavioral Science in Los Angeles.

After training, Eshelman relocated to Portland, Oregon, where she worked in outpatient, inpatient and emergency room settings as an adult and child psychiatrist. Eshelman held the role of medical director for the Providence Crisis Triage Center and Providence St. Vincent Outpatient Mental Health Services in Portland. She also held an appointment as affiliate faculty of psychiatry at Oregon Health Sciences University.

Since joining CMHC in 2009, Eshelman has applied her clinical, consultative and administrative skills to improve psychiatric services at CMHC. She also has helped expand psychiatric training opportunities for psychiatry residents and fellows, psychiatric nurse practitioner students and psychiatric pharmacy residents.

Eshelman is board certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology in psychiatry, child and adolescent psychiatry and forensic psychiatry. She is the past president of the Texas Society for Psychiatric Physicians. Eshelman was named a distinguished fellow of the American Psychiatric Association in 2015.

Eshelman is Latina; her parents emigrated from Peru. Her professional interests include working with first-generation college students from underrepresented populations and transitional-aged youths.