Michèle Oriol has a PhD in sociology from l’Université Paris VII-Jussieu and is a graduate of the State University of Haiti (UEH) Faculty of Ethnology. She is a professor at the UEH where she directed the master’s program in history, memory and heritage/criminology at Université Quisqueya. She has been the executive secretary of Haiti’s Comité Interministériel d’Aménagement du Territoire (Inter-Ministerial Committee for Regional Development), (CIAT), since November 2011.
Oriol has worked as a consultant for many national and international development institutions on a wide range of subjects, including regional authorities, decentralization, regional economics, land use planning, land tenure, agrarian systems, and vocational training. She has been involved in the design, follow-up, and assessment of many rural development and environmental protection projects.
Oriol is a founding member of the Foundation for Iconographic Research and has produced several educational exhibitions and publications in partnership with other prominent Haitian scholars on the history of Haiti and on civic education, among other themes. In July 2009, she was awarded the Order of Agricultural Merit by the French Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries and was made a knight of the Legion of Honour in December 2018.
Oriol was an event speaker at the Dialogue.