Michelle Martinez was born in and raised by the Latine diaspora of Southwest Detroit. She is a climate justice organizer fighting for the survival humans and more than humans on traditional Anishnaabe territories.

Since 2006, she has fought gross expansion of fossil fuels in the Great Lakes and erosion of democracy, working to restore human rights and our integral connection to Earth, home, and hearth documenting the struggle along the way through essays, photos, and opinion pieces. Her works can be found in Planet Detroit and publications like the Sandbox Revolution, Gonna Trouble the Water, Neighborhood Guidebook, and A People’s Atlas of Detroit.

Currently Martinez is the Director of the Tishman Center for Social Justice and the Environment at the University of Michigan and a lecturer in its School of Environment and Sustainability where she trains students studying environmental justice in social change theory and practice. She is a founding member of the Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition and served as its Statewide coordinator and Executive Director from 2017 to 2022. Through her career she’s taken on campaigns for climate policy at the federal level to local urban farming initiatives. She’s taken on corporate campaigns for energy justice focusing on race and equity to eliminate inequality for which she is recognized by Congress and the Michigan State Legislature.

She graduated from the University of Michigan twice, earning her Master's in Environmental Policy and Planning in 2008 and receiving her Undergraduate Degree in English Language and Literature in 2003. She is parent to two wild children, and a street dog named Pig.