She focuses on the scholarship of teaching and learning, studying introductory biology, microbiology, and cancer biology classes at the undergraduate level, as well as working on several K 12 science education programs. Michele is an active participant in programs that provide mentoring in scientific teaching to postdoctoral fellows, preparing the next generation of undergraduate educators. She is the recipient of numerous teaching awards, including a the Westhafer award for Teaching Excellence at NMSU. Michele received her Ph.D. from the Sackler Schoolof Graduate Biomedical Sciences at Tufts University School of Medicine, where she studied meiotic chromosome segregation in yeast.