Michelle is an award-winning, NIH-funded researcher at the University of Michigan with almost thirty years studying how to help people adopt self-care behaviors, like exercise and healthy eating, in ways that bring meaning and joy, and can survive the complexity and unpredictability of the real world.

Michelle’s translational research on creating sustainable physical activity is widely recognized as relevant and practical. She advises the World Health Organization on global physical activity initiatives and was selected to be the inaugural chair of the United States National Physical Activity Plan’s Communication Committee.

Since 1994, she has been designing and evaluating methods to help people transform their mindsets by flipping their internal scripts about exercise and self-care. Michelle’s combination of academic research with real-world health coaching permits her to create practical and engaging sustainable-change systems for digital health and individual coaching/counseling that are being scaled to boost patient and population health, employee well-being, and gym membership retention. 

Michelle has worked with and advised a number of prominent organizations, including U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Kaiser Permanente, Walmart, Intermountain Healthcare, Anytime Fitness, Adidas, Google, and Business Group on Health.

A sought-after speaker and trainer, Michelle is frequently interviewed about motivation and how to create sustainable change in major media outlets including The New York Times, NPR, The Atlantic, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Prevention, Real Simple, and TIME.

No Sweat!, her bestselling book showcasing methods to create lasting exercise motivation, is widely used to train individuals in health coaching, patient counseling, and fitness training across university and professional contexts.

Her new book, The Joy Choice, was named one of the best health books experts read by 2022 in The Washington Post. It introduces a practical, science-based system for breaking down all-or-nothing thinking and cultivating the flexible and tactical decision-making that supports sustaining exercise, healthy eating, and self-care within the complexities of daily life.

Michelle’s training and experience is uniquely comprehensive, including a doctorate in Psychology (PhD), a master’s degree in Health Behavior/Health Education (MPH), a master’s degree in Kinesiology (MS) and fellowships in translational research and health care policy from the University of Michigan. She ran with the Olympic Torch at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona.