Melissa K. Knowles is versatile to the extreme! She's a juggler, aerialist, hula hooper, acro-balancer, stilter, hand-balancer, contortionist, musician, artist, and circus instructor. She is also "professionally tiny" and can often be found hiding in your locker or suitcase or being thrown high into the air by pretty much anyone. She has toured across the United States, Canada, Europe, and Australia performing with Acrobatic Conundrum, C!RCA, Nimble Arts, Aerial Angels, Infinity Circus Productions, Boston Circus Guild, and Wunderle's Big Top Adventures.

Before discovering circus, she received degrees in Art and Psychology from the University of Tennessee. She has since completed the Professional Training Program at New England Center for Circus Arts (NECCA) in Brattleboro, VT as well as several rigging, fabric, trapeze teacher trainings and Functional Range Conditioning and Assessment workshops. Now she spends most of her time performing or teaching classes and workshops for both kids and adults at NECCA.

Her favorite thing about teaching and performing circus is the way it empowers people to do things they always thought impossible, but had just never tried.

She also likes dark chocolate.