Michele Byrd-McPhee is the founder and Executive Director of Ladies of Hip-Hop. Michele has been working for many years to re-contextualize spaces and conversation of Hip-Hop culture along gender, sex, cultural and socio-historical and racial lines for decades along with situating the arts and dance techniques in spaces that honor and acknowledge their roots and the many creative pioneers who have shaped them. This is especially important given the ways in which Black dance (and Hip-Hop especially) has been co-opted into studio appropriation given its community cultural origins.
Michele earned her BS from Temple University & an MS in Nonprofit Arts Management from Drexel University.  Michele has also spent the last 15-years working in production working as a production coordinator at Brooklyn Academy of Music and then as a Senior Music Coordinator at Late Night with Seth Meyers. Michele currently serves as the Chief Strategic & Artistic Advisor Showtime NYC; along with her ongoing commitment as Executive Director at Ladies of Hip-Hop. 
Michele has been awarded an Integrated Arts Residency Fellowship grant through University of Wisconsin-Madison Division of the arts.