Michelle Stearn

Michelle began working at the Democracy Collaborative in Fall 2015 after graduating from Georgetown University with a Bachelor’s degree at the School of Foreign Service. Her studies focussed on environmental justice, globalization, and critical theory. She also studied sustainable community development and urban agronomy for a semester in Santiago, Chile, where her Spanish accent became quite distinctive. Before joining the Democracy Collaborative, Michelle spent most of her time organizing for social justice on-campus and teaching in Ward 7 of Washington, D.C., where she co-founded a youth-centered community garden in the Parkside-Kenilworth neighborhood. 

Michelle is excited to collaborate closely with her colleagues at the Democracy Collaborative to expand the websites and outreach platforms for the Next System Project and Community Wealth Building initiatives. When she’s not managing social media and blogging for the Democracy Collaborative, Michelle can be found toiling away at a Biodiesel laboratory she built in Northeast DC, where she makes diesel fuel out of waste vegetable oil. She continues to glean inspiration from the research and work being done at the Democracy Collaborative and hopes to expand the Biodiesel operation into a worker cooperative some day.