Michelle Ciulla Lipkin is a globally recognized leader in media literacy education.
She works as a senior advisor for the National Association for Media Literacy Education, and is an Adjunct Lecturer at Brooklyn College where she teaches Media Literacy. Michelle serves as board chair of the Victims of Pan Am Flight 103, Inc.
Michelle worked as Executive Director of the National Association for Media Literacy Education from September 2012 – March 2025. Michelle helped NAMLE grow to be the preeminent media literacy education association in the U.S. She launched the first ever Media Literacy Week in the U.S. and the National Media Literacy Alliance. She oversaw eight national conferences and restructured both the governance and membership of NAMLE. During her tenure at NAMLE, she developed strategic partnerships with companies such as Thomson Reuters, Trend Micro, Roblox, Meta, TikTok, Google, and Nickelodeon.
Michelle has done countless appearances at conferences and in the media regarding the importance of media literacy education including being a guest on CNN’s Reliable Sources in 2017 and 2020. In 2020, Michelle appeared in the documentary “Trust Me” from award winning director Roko Belic as well as the PBS Documentary “Fake.” Michelle was the recipient of the 2020 Global Media and Information Literacy Award given by UNESCO. Michelle is an alumni of the U.S. Dept. of State’s International Visitors Program (Australia/2018).
Michelle began her career in children’s television production, in various roles on both corporate and production teams. She earned both her undergraduate and graduate degrees from New York University. Michelle focused her grad work on children and television where she caught the “media literacy bug”. After graduate school, Michelle worked as a facilitator for The LAMP (Learning about Multimedia Project) teaching media literacy and production classes for Pre-Kindergarten to 5th grade students.
Her passion for media literacy education stems from a very personal place. Read more about Michelle’s story here.
Besides extensive experience in media and media literacy education, Michelle has been an active community member in NYC. She has served in various capacities including:
President of the Parent Teacher Association (5 years)
Member of the School Leadership Council (6 years)
Benefit Co-Chair (2 years)
President of the District 3 Presidents’ Council (3 years)
Member of the Chancellor’s Parent Advisory Council (3 years)