Michelle is a sixth-year Ph.D. candidate in Political Theory and currently an Interdisciplinary Opportunity Fellow at the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America (CSREA) at Brown University. Her dissertation entitled, "The Art of Democratic Living: Recovering Alain Locke's Politics of Aesthetics," combines intellectual history and contemporary political thought in order to open new discussions about the relationship between aesthetics and politics, and democracy in particular. Her research interests include American political thought, democratic theory, black political thought, aesthetics and politics, affect theory, cosmopolitanism, and political psychology. Michelle holds an M.A. in Political Science from the University of California Los Angeles, an M.Phil in International Relations from the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, and a B.A. in Political Science, summa cum laude, from Loyola Marymount University.