Michelle Edwards Email & Phone Number

Lead strategist for the Defense Intelligence Agency’s (DIA) Officer Development program, addressing leadership, core skills and business acumen across all levels of the agency. Developed and facilitated a workshop to establish program structure. Developed an advanced certification program focusing on anti-money laundering (AML) audit practices for the Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists (ACAMS). The program integrates self-study, interactive classroom sessions and a publishable white paper to recognize advanced AML practitioners. In two years, the program has graduated over 80 CAMS-Audit advanced practitioners.Developed a financial management course for DIA’s functional managers to provide non-financial managers with skills managing and executing budgets at a tactical level, using a comprehensive case study following budget and financial management activities over a fiscal year. The pilot resulted in regular iterations with full enrollments 3 years later allowing DIA to cancel a more expensive, generic vendor program.Served on DIA’s Front End Analysis (FEA) Working Group which analyzed and prioritized training requests based on instructional design best practices, proposed outcomes and resource requirements. In the first year, training requests resulting in development dropped by over 50%.Lead strategist for a Design Thinking (DT) demonstration project to improve DIA's Equal Opportunity (EO) training. Used DT data gathering and ideation methods to integrate observations, best practices and research to identify solutions that did not require additional resources to deliver enhanced EO messages.Led a team developing a career service plan for DIA’s technical collection officers. Collected data via surveys and interviews to identify skills, capabilities and critical job tasks for 3 subspecialties at all levels. The team aligned skills, capabilities and tasks with intelligence community (IC) and DIA competency models.

Managed a team of instructional design professionals responsible for creating, maintaining, and customizing a curriculum of 60+ financial management courses. In the space of two years, 17 courses received college credit recommendations from the American Council on Education (ACE), whose application process is rigorous and the recommendations reflect a high degree of excellence. Developed metrics to measure the quality of instructional materials and, in three years, improved quality while reducing the amount of money spent on subject matter expert (SME) resources by 45%.

Interacted with representatives of the U.S. and foreign governments at the highest levels. Streamlined the ambassador’s scheduling system as well as coordinating the data collection and drafting of the embassy’s strategic plan.

Developed training for mid-level insurance investigators to meet the strategic and operational needs of the organization. Interviewed a variety of SMEs and designed modules based on best practices, incorporating a variety of instructional delivery methods. The training program included assessment components that students had to pass in order to be certified. Facilitated the student feedback portion of the pilot program and created a plan for revision of subsequent iterations. Developed web-based information tools for independent insurance agents

Evaluated the Army’s civilian leadership training programs. Correlated training with leadership skills at various levels, evaluated training effectiveness, benchmarked outside leadership training programs and connected Army trends with leadership training implications. Directed the data collection and analysis of 360-degree surveys for students of select programs.

Bachelor Of Arts (Ba), Communication And Media Studies

M.Ed., Instructional Technology