Michelle De Santiago is a program officer for First 5 Los Angeles. She completed her Master of Public Policy program at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs where her elective coursework centered on issues of educational equity, while her extracurricular efforts focused on fostering diversity.

Prior to her position as a Bohnett Fellow in the Office of the Mayor of Los Angeles, she worked for Assemblymember Hector De La Torre as Field Representative in his Southeast Los Angeles County district office. For more than four years, she worked closely with the communities of Commerce, Cudahy, and Lynwood on a wide range of issues including health, education, and the environment. In 2007, Michelle took a nine-month departure from the California Assembly to teach English at Baoding Finance University in Hebei province, China.

In her current position, she is able to work on educational equity issues within the greater Los Angeles area and eventually hopes to establish a non-profit community resource center.