Born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Michelle is the daughter of two naturalized US citizens who were born in Taiwan.
Michelle graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in Harvard College in 2003 with a B.A. in Social Studies and Women's Studies. A Truman Scholar, Michelle served as the volunteer director of the Harvard Square Homeless Shelter, the only student-run shelter in the nation. Following graduation, Michelle moved to the rural town of Helena, Arkansas, located in the heart of the Mississippi Delta, and taught English at an alternative school for kids who were expelled from other schools.
Michelle graduated from Harvard Law School in 2009, where she received the Outstanding Clinical Student Award for her advocacy of children with special needs and the Derek Bok Distinction in Teaching. Michelle worked as a student attorney at the Criminal Justice Institute, a domestic violence and family mediation clinic, and the Education Law Clinic/Trauma Policy Learning Initiative.
Michelle worked as an immigrants' rights lawyer at Centro Legal de la Raza, located in the Fruitvale district of Oakland, California. She advocated for tenants facing evictions, workers stiffed out of their wages, and families facing deportation. Supported by a Skadden Fellowship, Michelle's clients included day laborers, restaurant workers, gardeners, nannies, and home care workers.
Michelle clerked for the Honorable John T. Noonan at the Court of Appeals of the Ninth Circuit. She has also taught courses at San Quentin through the Prison University Project, the only college-degree granting program at a state prison in California.
Currently, Michelle teaches in the History, Law, and Society program at the American University of Paris on issues related to race, punishment, immigration, and the law. She won the 2016 Board of Trustees Award for Distinguished Teaching.
Michelle's book, Reading with Patrick, will be published by Random House in July 2017. A mix of memoir and history, it is a story of race, inequality, and the power of literature in the rural South.
Michelle is married to the wonderful Albert Wu, a historian of Europe and East Asia.
