Bio
Michelle Lambert-Williamson’s love for people began with an interest in photojournalism at Western Kentucky University (WKU) where she earned a bachelor’s degree in Interdisciplinary Studies with an Emphasis on Social and Behavioral Sciences. While serving as the production manager of the College Heights Herald, the student newspaper at WKU, she began feature writing and taking pictures. Michelle worked as a “labbie”, photo lab assistant, in the WKU photojournalism program darkroom, where she enjoyed teaching incoming students the magical process of how to process film, how to use a grain finder to focus images on an enlarger, and how to bring those images to life on light sensitive paper. She also served as a student worker at The Mountain People’s Workshop, now called Mountain Workshops, and assisted in editing the Albany edition of the workshop publications. She spent a summer in Portland, Maine, as a photography student at the Salt Center for Documentary Field Studies and did photo internships at newspapers in Parsons, Kansas; Watseka, Illinois; and in her hometown of Elizabethtown, Kentucky. Transplanted to Maryland in 1993, she worked as a photo intern at the Montgomery Journal and then as a staff photographer at the Montgomery Gazette, both Montgomery County, Maryland newspapers. which further developed her talents and also strengthened her love of our area .
Her decision to stay has enriched our community because Michelle is an 18-year veteran of Montgomery County Public Schools where she spent 14 years in the classroom as a para educator. She worked for eight years as an instructional data analyst at Somerset Elementary School in Chevy Chase, Maryland, where she administered the Measures of Academic Progress tests, known as MAP tests, to the entire student population. While at Somerset, she enjoyed watching two sets of kindergartners go all the way from their first day of school to their 5th grade “clap out”, a Somerset tradition where students are celebrated and promoted to middle school. Her passion is meeting students where they are in their educational growth and assisting them in working to meet their future goals. Since August of 2022, Michelle has been a proud member of Prepmatters where she supports the extraordinary, seasoned educational specialists who mentor equally amazing young students as they journey to secure their own educational footing.