Melih is an industrial engineer with an interest in public management. He worked as a post-doctoral researcher at Syracuse University, and as a lecturer at Hacettepe University. He is currently an associate professor in operations research at RMIT University.

His research spans areas including multi-objective optimisation, mathematical programming and combinatorial optimisation. He often works on projects aiming to develop new approaches to solve large problems in a timely manner. Lately he is interested in selective vehicle routing problems that arise in practical settings including home health care, disaster response management, and project and maintenance management.