Michele has received numerous awards including the 2025 Presidential Award for Excellence in Collaboration to Improve Teaching; the 2021 Dr. Robert A. Daniel Award for Diversity, Inclusion and Social Justice; a 2020 Special Commendation from the Boston Society of Film Critics; a 2005 Baldwin Award for Alumni Recognition in Film & Video by Boston College; and the 2000 Image Award for Vision and Excellence by Women in Film & Video New England.
She has received numerous grants for her academic projects and films, including a Center for the Advancement of Research and Scholarship Faculty Library Research Grants and a Martin Richard Institute for Social Justice Research Grant at Bridgewater State University; Make Arts Grant from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts; and a Mass Cultural Council Creative Experiences Grant.
Her essay “Exposing Flaws of Affirmative Consent through Contemporary American Teen Films” won Honorable Mention for the 2022 Timothy Shary Essay Prize through the Children’s and Youth Media and Culture Scholarly Interest Group at the Society For Cinema and Media Studies.