Prior to completing her Masters of Digital Media from Great Northern Way Campus, Michelle earned a Bachelors in Visual Fine Arts from Emily Carr University of Art and Design. In the summer of 2008 she worked at Radical Entertainment to create courses about paper prototyping and experimental gaming for teaching within the company. Over the winter of 2008 Michelle and five others formed a group to rapidly prototype game ideas in Flash and Big Hadron Games was born. During this time Michelle was one of 25 international students selected by the International Game Developers Association for mentorship and a free pass to the 2009 Game Developer Conference in San Fransisco. Since then Michelle has attended BCNET, GDC Canada 2009, spoke with Steve Danic as part of Digital Kung Fu, promoted video game development in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and completed a four-week marketing and community development role at Koolhaus Games. She is also an organizer for Women In Games Vancouver, an organization that promotes the inclusion and advancement of women in video game development. Michelle and two others have continued Big Hadron Games for the purpose of pursuing business and game development opportunities in Vancouver.

• Games that integrate social sharing networks because I want to know which friend I need to trounce next in my Facebook and iPhone games.
• Nintendo DS games from Japan, Korea, France, and Germany because they remind me that good games are ones that can cross any language barrier. I also believe studying games from foreign cultures to be inspirational and entrepreneurial.
• Flash games because I want to see game concepts and mechanics that push boundaries in creativity and design. I want to know so I can do it better.
• Board games and paper prototypes that put the whole world at your finger tips.
• Alternate reality games remind me that people want to participate and enact change on the world in which they believe in.
• Games that can educate today’s media-saturated child.
• Console games that encourage you to play with a friend first, and alone second.
• Games that do not use controllers and harness your voice, arms, body, movement, or actions as input devices.
• Music games that make you feel like a rock star.