Michelle Babcock

Michelle earned a B.S. in Communication with a concentration in Journalism and Social Media from Kennesaw State University in 2012. As a senior writer at daily and weekly newspapers, Michelle published more than 1,500 articles, winning 19 individual Associated Press and Georgia Press Association awards for news writing, education reporting, investigative reporting, business writing, feature writing, photojournalism, and public service. After working in the newsroom, Michelle moved into freelance reporting, media, and marketing, owning and operating a successful business Media By Michelle LLC since 2016. Through their business, Michelle has collaborated with scientists and business clients across the country on website design, social media marketing, video production, ghostwriting blog articles and manuscripts, political communications, and business branding. Media By Michelle projects have included working with planetary scientists, astrobiologists, and astrophysicists to develop online media for NASA-funded grant teams, ghostwriting the manuscript for an Amazon top seller in the Business: Real Estate category, designing and launching business websites, branding packages for various companies, campaign marketing design and communications, specialized blog writing and social media marketing, and video production for online marketing. After a few years in journalism and online marketing, Michelle returned to Georgia Tech to pursue their passion for planetary and space sciences, earning top faculty honors multiple semesters for achieving a 4.0 GPA with a full-time class load of 12 credit hours or more. Michelle worked full time while in school, maintaining their GPA to achieve high honors upon graduation in 2021 with their B.S. in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. In addition to owning and operating their own business while in school, Michelle also worked with the Oceans Across Space and Time (OAST) NASA-funded grant team, building public-facing websites and social media presence, along with producing online educational videos and blog articles. Additionally, Michelle spent two semesters working with the Oceans Across Space and Time team on undergraduate research, earning the Research Option designation on their degree for completing and undergraduate research thesis. For their research, Michelle used geomapping to study fault lines on Europa, in order to quantify faults and ridges with tortuous morphology. Michelle also competed in the Georgia Tech Carbon Reduction Challenge, hosted by the Global Change Program and Ray C. Anderson Center for Sustainable Business at Georgia Tech. Michelle and their team won first place in the competition by working with an international nonprofit to update and manage their global vehicle fleet, in order to save money and reduce their carbon footprint by more than 6 million pounds annually. Michelle was accepted into the B.S./M.S. program in 2020, completing their second bachelor's while beginning a master's program. Michelle will complete their Master's in Earth and Atmospheric Science, with a Graduate Certificate in Astrobiology, focusing on planetary science, astrophysics, and astrobiology, in 2022.