Dr. Michelle Bodden-White has been an initiated priest of Yemoja for more than forty years. She was among the first members of Egbe Omo Yemoja and currently serves as an Elegun for Ogunleki during the annual Odun Yemoja celebration on Rockaway Beach, NY.

In her professional life, she enjoyed a successful and rewarding career in education. She was a public school teacher and principal, an adjunct professor in education at a major college in NYC, and has earned a Certificate of Graduate Study in Online Learning and Teaching, as well as a doctorate in Educational Leadership. She is also the author of three children’s books—Obara and the Merchants, Obara the Gatekeeper, and The Arrogant King—each a retelling of an apataki, or sacred story, from the Orisha tradition.

After retiring from her educational career, Dr. Bodden-White earned her J.D., magna cum laude, at Albany Law School in New York in December 2021. She currently serves as an Attorney for the Child in Ulster County, New York, and has founded her own law firm dedicated to estate planning for Orisha worshippers.