Michelle is a Brazilian legal scholar and Associate Professor of International Law at the Getulio Vargas Foundation Law School in São Paulo (FGV Direito SP), where she teaches within the Graduate Program in Law and Development. She holds a Bachelor of Laws and a Ph.D. in State Law from the University of São Paulo (USP), complemented by a postdoctoral research fellowship through the Global Hauser Program at the New York University (NYU) School of Law.
Her academic research operates at the intersection of international economic law, global governance, and legal sociology. Her work tracks how international economic legal instruments shape broader fields of social relations and investigates the specific ways institutional actors mobilize legal technicalities from a Global South perspective. A leading expert on international trade regulation, she co-coordinates the WTO Chairs Programme in Brazil and co-directs the Centre on Global Law and Development at FGV. Her comparative work explores global administrative law, regional trade agreements, and contemporary challenges to the international legal architecture, such as China’s regulatory innovations.
She has an extensive track record of institutional service and international collaboration. She is a founding member of the Society of International Economic Law (SIEL) and serves as a director for both the Latin American Network for International Economic Law (RedLatDEI) and the Brazilian chapter of the International Law Association (ILA). Previously, she held research positions at the Brazilian Center for Analysis and Planning (CEBRAP) and the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva.