Michelle Rugel is a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill alumna and received her M.Ed. in Montessori Education from Loyola University in Baltimore. She was trained as an AMI Elementary guide (ages 6-12) by Dr. Kay Baker at the Washington Montessori Institute. She taught in an elementary classroom in Chicago and helped to organize a new Montessori environment in Switzerland before moving to Puebla, Mexico for her AMI Primary training (ages 3-6) under Coral Ruiz. From 2014-2016 she served as a primary guide at the Montessori Academy Bangkok International School in Thailand before moving to Colorado in 2017 where she completed her AMI Assistants to Infancy training (ages 0-3) with Judi Orion in Denver.