Michelle Zacarias is an American journalist, activist and academic. She has written for several publications, and was an adjunct instructor at the

USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism The USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism is a part of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. It has 2,300 undergraduate and graduate students. Willow Bay is the dean. Prof. Hector Amaya is the Director of the Sc ...

Life

Zacarias received a bachelor's degree in English and Philosophy at

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United ...

in 2013, and graduated with a Masters in Studies of Law and a Certification of Law, Social Justice and Diversity at the

USC Gould School of Law The University of Southern California Gould School of Law located in Los Angeles, California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Or ...

. Zacarias has written for

Teen Vogue ''Teen Vogue'' is an American progressive online publication, formerly in print, launched in January 2003, as a sister publication to '' Vogue'', targeted at teenage girls and young women. Like ''Vogue'', it included stories about fashion and ...

, CALÓ NEWS,

The Triibe ''The TRiiBE'' is an African-American online news and digital media company based in Chicago, Illinois. It was founded in 2017 by Morgan Elise Johnson and Tiffany Walden, along with web developer David Elutilo. In 2019, they published a print ve ...

, Latina Mag,

People's World ''People's World'', official successor to the '' Daily Worker'', is a Marxist-Leninist and American leftist national daily online news publication. Founded by activists, socialists, communists, and those active in the labor movement in the earl ...

, New America, and

City Bureau City Bureau is an American non-profit organization based in the South Side of Chicago, Illinois. It is a non-profit newsroom with a stated mission "to equip every community with the tools it needs to eliminate information inequity to further li ...

. A native of the

West Side, Chicago The West Side is one of the three major sections of the city of Chicago, Illinois, United States. The others are the North Side and South Side. The West Side contains communities that are of historical and cultural importance to the history an ...

, Zacarias is also a disabled, queer Latina organizer. She is one of four founders of the Trans Liberation Collective (TLC) to fight anti-transgender bathroom bills. Zacarias is a board member of Brave Space Alliance, a non-profit in

South Side, Chicago The South Side is one of the three major sections of the city of Chicago, Illinois, United States. Geographically, it is the largest of the sections of the city, with the other two being the North and West Sides. It radiates and lies south o ...

. She presented on disability awareness at the U.S. Consulate at

Ho Chi Minh City Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) ('','' TP.HCM; ), commonly known as Saigon (; ), is the most populous city in Vietnam with a population of around 14 million in 2025. The city's geography is defined by rivers and canals, of which the largest is Saigo ...

, Vietnam. She was selected by

UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism The UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism is a graduate professional school on the campus of University of California, Berkeley. It is designed to produce journalists with a two-year Master of Journalism (MJ) degree. It also offers a minor i ...

for the 2023-25 California Local News Fellowship for the Latino Media Collaborative.

Recognition

Zacarias was awarded the 2018 Saul Miller Excellence in Journalism Award, and was inducted to the

Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame The Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame (formerly Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame) is an institution founded in 1991 to honor persons and entities who have made significant contributions to the quality of life or well-being of the LGBT community in Ch ...

in 2020.

References

Living people Year of birth missing (living people) University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni University of Southern California faculty Hispanic and Latino American activists American LGBTQ rights activists American disability rights activists USC Gould School of Law alumni 21st-century American women journalists 21st-century American journalists {{US-journalist-stub