Missy Braham was born and raised in Maryland. Growing up around the Chesapeake Bay inspired her curiosity with the natural world. She graduated with a B.Sc. in Wildlife and Fisheries Resources from West Virginia University in 2005. She used that degree to travel around the US working a variety of seasonal field technician positions. Missy joined the team in 2013.

She has worked on projects that studied population dynamics, movement, habitat use, and the biology of multiple fish species in various regions. She has worked with endangered Catostomids in the upper Klamath River Basin, commercial fisheries in the Bering Sea, salmonids on the Yukon-Kuskokwim delta, percids along the Missouri River, and she has participated in a variety of projects involving brook trout in headwater streams of West Virginia. These seasonal positions shaped her research interests and gained her a great deal of knowledge. She then came back to West Virginia University with her husband, Ryan, to work towards their MSc. Missy earned her M.Sc. degree studying the benthic habitat selection of yellow-phase American eels.

In 2018, Missy and her family moved across the country to Southeast Idaho. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with family and friends, getting lost in the mountains, kayaking, fishing, hunting, and rooting for her beloved Ravens. Since joining this research team in 2013, she acts as the data manager for multiple large spatial data-sets. She has led a study on the seasonal variation of golden eagle home ranges within the Mojave Desert of California. And has assisted in the analysis of golden eagle, bald eagle, California condor, and white-tailed eagle data for multiple scientific publications.