Michelle died peacefully in her Washington, D.C., home Jan. 21, 2021. 

Although raised in Birmingham, Ala., Michelle always considered herself to be from Cornersville, Tenn., just outside of Nashville. At Princeton she majored in psychology before going on to attend the Virginia Consortium Program in Clinical Psychology at Old Dominion University. She received her doctorate in psychology from Howard University, completing her predoctoral internship and her postdoctoral fellowship at Howard University Hospital. 

Michelle was dedicated to working with the underserved population of Washington, D.C., and made it her mission to work with those experiencing chronic and persistent mental illness. She worked the last 14 years of her life at St. Elizabeths Hospital, where she was a recognized expert in group psychotherapy and in cognitive behavioral therapy for psychosis (CBT-P). Just prior to her death, she had been selected to serve as the deputy director of psychology at the hospital. 

In her personal life, Michelle was a devotee of British drama, science fiction, and politics, and had a deep awareness of how race imbues every aspect of our lives in America. Her taste in music was wide-ranging and eclectic. Michelle was a plumbline that hung straight. She had a true internal moral compass and had a way of speaking honestly with a calm that cut through the static and went straight to the heart of the matter. To her friends and family, the class extends its deepest sympathies.

Class Year: 
Undergraduate Class of 1989