Michele Simon has a master's degree in public health from Yale University and a law degree from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. She is founder and director of the Center for Informed Food Choices (CIFC), a nonprofit organization based in the San Francisco Bay Area. CIFC's mission is to provide people with educational tools and reliable resources to transition to a plant-based diet. It also seeks to raise awareness about how government policies and corporations influence our food choices, and to advocate for positive policy changes.

Michele has been working with vegetarian causes since 1995, after losing 40 pounds by following Dean Ornish's weight loss plan. She has worked as a volunteer for EarthSave and served on the board of the San Francisco Vegetarian Society, where she headed up a speakers bureau, gave talks to community groups, and edited the organization's newsletter. In 1999 and 2000, she successfully coordinated San Francisco's only annual vegetarian food fair.

Michele has also worked as a policy analyst for Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit that promotes a plant-based diet. As a freelance writer specializing in food and nutrition policy, she has published numerous articles and appeared on several national radio programs, raising awareness about such issues as the National School Lunch Program, organic standards, the USDA's dietary guidelines, the politics of meat and dairy, veggie libel laws, and genetically engineered foods.

After years of educating people about the benefits of a vegetarian diet, Michele formed the Center for Informed Food Choices with two goals in mind. One is to answer the "how-to" questions that people are often faced with when trying to make positive dietary changes. CIFC's programs provide practical tools to assist with this transition, such as cooking classes and other food-education resources.

CIFC's second objective is to educate people about how corporations and the government influence our food choices. The USDA has long been criticized for its inherent conflict of interest in setting nutrition guidelines while also promoting the meat and dairy industries. CIFC seeks to raise public awareness of these issues and to advocate for food policies that are based on sound science and aimed at protecting public health, instead of the monetary interests of corporations.