Michelle is a senior research scientist at NORC at the University of Chicago. Michelle has worked across various institutional settings and sectors, including the federal government, universities, and non-profit organizations. Trained as a mixed-methods scientist, she has designed and directed a wide range of research and evaluation studies on a variety of equity-related health topics, including HIV/STIs, mental health, violence victimization, substance use, and access to care.

Michelle has directed translational research projects that apply lessons learned from research and evaluation to real-world settings. She directs the HIRISE+ study, a National Institute of Justice (NIJ)-funded project collecting data through online surveys and in-depth interviews from both sexual and gender minority (SGM) community members and law enforcement. HIRISE+ uses data to create evidence-based recommendations for improving hate crime reporting among SGM survivors of violence. In her previous role at the CDC, she collaborated with NORC scientists on the START project, which leveraged data from focus groups and surveys to design tools for educators and administrators to implement practices for fostering safe and supportive school environments for SGM adolescents.

Michelle has led multiple program evaluation efforts on critical public health issues. She directs the evaluation for the AstraZeneca Foundation’s CHANGE program, a community-engaged evaluation co-created with staff from federally qualified health centers to assess efforts to improve access to care for underrepresented groups. At the CDC, she contributed to the design of the Division of Adolescent and School Health’s Program Evaluation Reporting System, including developing evaluation metrics, data collection methods, and data analytic plans, to assess effectiveness in programming related to HIV and STI prevention in school settings.

Michelle is experienced in scientific communication. She has authored over 60 peer-reviewed publications in high-impact journals, such as JAMA Pediatrics, the Journal of Adolescent Health, and the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report; presented research at over 70 scientific conferences, like the American Public Health Association and the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine; and guest lectured on research methods for institutions like Emory University.  Michelle received the 2021 Excellence in Leadership Award (GS 11-13) from CDC’s National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB, and was recognized as a Community of Scholars Fellow at the Institute for Research on Women and Gender (IRWG) at the University of Michigan in 2014.