Michelle Alves de Lima is a multimedia storyteller and strategic communications professional dedicated to strengthening public institutions through design-driven storytelling, systems thinking, and human-centered communication. A Brazilian journalist with more than 20 years of global experience, she has built a career at the intersection of narrative, learning, and operational innovation, translating complex institutional work into accessible stories that inspire action and collective problem-solving.

At the United Nations Department of Operational Support (DOS), Michelle leads high-impact initiatives that shape how the UN captures, shares, and learns from operational knowledge. She is the co-creator and lead producer of UNTold: Behind the Scenes of UN Operations, a pioneering multimedia series that documents field-level innovation across peacekeeping and political missions and transforms it into global learning and institutional memory.

Michelle’s storytelling career spans Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Her reporting has been published in Brazil, the United States, the Czech Republic, and Switzerland, and she has produced videos, campaign strategies, and learning products that illuminate themes such as climate change, urban resilience, innovation, gender equality, and sustainable development. Across all her projects, she brings a designer’s sensibility to narrative: attentive to systems, patterns, and the quiet structures that shape how people learn, connect, and collaborate.

Michelle is also the founder of Understory Lab, a narrative and design studio focused on institutional memory, creative documentation, and the hidden systems that underpin social and environmental resilience. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Taubaté (Brazil) and a master’s degree in Global Affairs from New York University.

Her work is guided by a simple belief: when designed with care, stories can transform organizations, empower communities, and shift the way we imagine and build the future.