Michelle Hanlon

In March 2021, Hanlon was elected president of the National Space Society, an American international nonprofit educational and scientific organization. She serves on the advisory board of several start-ups involved in commercial space activities, including orbital debris removal, remote sensing, and the support of lunar resource extraction. Also in 2021, Hanlon joined the Advisory Council of The Hague Institute for Global Justice Off-World Approach, created to serve as a platform "where leading experts in space enterprise can work to develop a rule of law in space that is flexible, inclusive, and permissive for the next generation of space adventurers to excel."

In July 2017, Hanlon co-founded For All Moonkind with Tim Hanlon. It is a nonprofit organization protecting human cultural heritage in outer space. The organization is a permanent observer to the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. It advocates internationally, including with the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, for the development of protocols to identify and protect human history in space.

Later in 2017, she studied air and space law at McGill University and graduated from the McGill University Faculty of Law with a Master of Laws degree in air and space law.

Hanlon completed high school in 1983 at the Kent School, Kent, Connecticut. In 1987, Hanlon received a B.A. in political science at Yale College. She earned a Juris Doctor degree from Georgetown University Law Center in 1992.

Michelle Lea Desyin Slawecki Hanlon (born August 8, 1965) is an American space lawyer and space law professor. She is the co-founder and president of For All Moonkind, president of the National Space Society, co-director of the Center for Air and Space Law at the University of Mississippi School of Law.