Professor Michelle Welsh undertakes research in the public enforcement of corporate law, the role of the public regulator and the impact of enforcement on corporate compliance. She was a chief investigator on an ARC Discovery Project with colleagues from the Melbourne Law School: ‘Phoenix Activity: Regulating Fraudulent Use of the Corporate Form' (2014-2016). Currently, she is a member of a Monash University Network of Excellence (NoE) project: “Enhancing Corporate Accountability” (with researchers from Monash Law School, the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Manchester University). She is also working on a project that investigates optimal methods of regulating Debt Management Firms.

Michelle has published her research widely and has been invited to present at national and international workshops and conferences including: the University of Michigan, the University of British Columbia, Osgoode Hall Law School, the Law Society of Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Institute of Chartered Secretaries and the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission. Michelle's PhD thesis, concerning Civil Penalties under the Corporations Act was awarded the Melbourne University Law Faculty prize for the top PhD thesis in 2009. 

Michelle is the Senior Deputy Dean Faculty Operations, Monash Business School. She was the Head of the Department of Business Law and Taxation at the Monash Business School from 2016 to 2020.  She served as President of the Australian Corporate Law Teachers Association in 2015 and 2016, is a European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI), Research Member and is a current member of the Corporations Committee, Business Law Section, Law Council of Australia.