Michelle recently became the National Director of Campaigns at the Sierra Club, the largest membership organization in the country, second only to labor. Prior to that, Michelle was on the Movement Generation Justice & Ecology Project staff collective from 2008-2021. She  continues to serve as a strategic advisor to MG.

Michelle has worked for the last 25 years building movement vehicles for frontline communities to move a shared vision and strategy. Prior to her work at MG, she co-led the Center for Food and Justice, National Farm to School Initiative, Rooted in Community, and School of Unity and Liberation (SOUL). In her role as an MG collective member, Michelle was a founding co-chair of the Climate Justice Alliance and the Our Power Campaign which is uniting frontline communities around a just transition. Michelle was recently named an Ashoka Fellow (2017-2020).

Prior to her work with MG, Michelle helped cultivate the farm-to-school movement and was instrumental in setting up some of the first farm-to-school programs in the country in the 1990s.  As Director of the Center for Food and Justice in Los Angeles, she led the launch of the National Farm to School Initiative which became a thriving national network and set of farm-to-institution campaigns. Michelle was awarded a Kellogg Food and Policy Fellowship in 2002 for her work advancing food justice.

Born and raised in Southern California, Michelle has nurtured a growing family in the SF Bay Area over the last 20 years. As a mama, she can often be found organizing with other families to meet basic needs for childcare, meals, and justice through mutual aid coops. She is also in the teacher training program of generative somatics as she actively works to heal from individual and collective trauma as part of collective social change.

Written pieces:

• Permanently Organized Communities – 2020
• The Case for a Just Transition (Chapter 3 of Energy Democracy: Advancing Equity in Clean Energy Solutions) (Chapter 3 of Energy Democracy book – PDF) – 2017
• Mamas Day 2014: Mothering Through Climate Chaos – 2014