A Chicago native born to immigrant parents, Michelle is the first in her family to graduate from college with a degree in Sociology and a minor in Earth and Oceanographic Science from Bowdoin College. Reflecting on her transformative educational experience, Michelle left college with a mission: to fight to ensure BIPOC students from low-income backgrounds, like her, not only have access to an equitable education but one where they are invited to thrive as their authentic selves. She served as a cultural ambassador through a Fulbright Fellowship to Europe and upon her return to the United States, joined Teach For America, where she taught middle school math and science at a Title I school on the west side of San Antonio. Quickly becoming one of the highest-ranked teachers in her district, Michelle was promoted to Assistant Principal of Instruction where she created a new k-12 math and science curriculum, earning her school a state rating of an “A” for the first time since its founding. Michelle now brings her expertise in k-12 education and scrappy entrepreneurial nature to Greenhouse Scholars, an education nonprofit and scholarship program that she was blessed to be a recipient of when she started her collegiate journey. At Greenhouse, Michelle is co-creating and executing Greenhouse’s inaugural alumni program, the Young Leaders Program, where she continues to work to ensure that people of all backgrounds can live a life of their choosing.
