Martinez, Michelle
Michelle Martinez
Dr. Michelle Martinez is the Inaugural Director of the Tishman Center for Social Justice and the Environment and a Lecturer at the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability. She previously was the Executive Director of the Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition. Dr. Martinez is a dedicated community organizer who has worked with organizations including the Sierra Club, Friends of Detroit River, and We the People.
Martinez, Michelle. 2021. Honoring Earth: Healing the Carceral Mind and Climate Crisis with Joyful Interconnectedness. In Lydia, Wylie-Kellermann (Ed.), The sandbox revolution: Raising kids for a just world (pp 151-162). Broadleaf Books. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1b0fwnk.16
Martinez, Michelle. 2021. Environmental Justice and Detroit’s Long Shadow. In Miguel De La Torre (Ed.), Gonna trouble the water, (pp 70-86). Pilgrim Press.
Martinez, Michelle. 2020. We Need to Put Together a Plan That Honors People in This Place, on This Land. In Linda Campbell, Andrew Newman, Sara Safransky, and Tim Stallman (Eds.), A People’s Atlas of Detroit, (pp 111-115). Wayne State University Press.
Martinez, Michelle. 2017. Dispatch from SW Detroit: Seven Generations Seeking Good Home, Good Faith, Strong Will, Hard Working AKA Get Your Own Damn Holiday and Stopping Dressing up like a Fucking Mexican. In Aaron Foley (Ed.), The Detroit Neighborhood Guidebook. Belt Publishing.
Kalkirtz, Victoria, Martinez, Michelle, and Teague, Alexandria. 2015. Fishing on the Detroit River: Historical Pollution, Environmental Racism and the Scientific State. In Steven Howard Emerman, Marcia Bjørnerud, Jill S. Schneiderman, Sarah A. Levy (Eds.), Liberation Science: Putting Science to Work for Social and Environmental Justice. Lulu Press.
Michelle Martinez was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, where she still resides. She received her Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Language with a Minor in Anthropology from the University of Michigan in 2003. Martinez received her Master of Science in Environmental Policy and Planning in 2008 from the University of Michigan. Dr. Martinez also has a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Certification from Michigan State University.
After completing her graduate degree, Martinez joined The Greening of Detroit as a Program Coordinator. She worked with residents to manage 120 vacant and abandoned lots in Detroit’s Historic North End and develop plans to improve the neighbors’ quality of life and environmental conditions. In 2009, she joined the Sierra Club as a Regional Associate Organizer. She worked with the Cool Cities program and was a Coal Campaign organizer.
From 2012 to 2014, Martinez was a Public Policy Associate for the Consortium of Hispanic Agencies. In 2015, she served eight months as Director of Urban Programs at the Center for Whole Communities before joining Third Horizons Consulting as the firm’s Executive Director.
In 2017, Martinez joined the Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition (MEJC) as Statewide Coordinator and Acting Executive Director. In 2020, Martinez wrote a chapter contribution for A People’s Atlas of Detroit titled “We Need to Put Together a Plan That Honors People in This Place, on This Land”.
In 2022, Martinez left MEJC to become the Inaugural Director of the Tishman Center for Social Justice and the Environment and a Lecturer at the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability. Since 2022, she has also been a visiting scholar at the Tishman Environment and Design Center at The New School in New York City. The Tishman Environmental and Design Center at The New School is dedicated to using courageous policy, design, and social justice approaches to address environmental and climate justice issues.
Martinez is a board member of Planet Detroit, We the People-MI, and the Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition. Martinez has past board experience on the Northend Woodward Community Garden and the Friends of the Detroit River. She has volunteer experience with Sierra Club EJ Action Group, Beware of the Dandelions Cohort, and the Centro Oberero Workers Center in Detroit. Martinez is a founder of the Swimming in the Detroit River Story Collective and the Mira Radical Art Collective.
Michelle Martinez | University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability. 2021. Umich.edu. https://seas.umich.edu/research/faculty/michelle-martinez