Michelle Levano
Lieutenant Michelle Levano currently is a Masters in Public Administration Candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Following her graduation in May 2025, she will be returning to NOAA to serve as a Program Analyst for the Office of Marine and Aviation Operation’s Commissioned Personnel Center.
Previously, she served as the Flag Aide to the Under Secretary for Oceans and Atmospheres and NOAA Administrator. Here, she provided administrative and logistical support, ensuring NOAA’s leadership can successfully run the agency. Traveling around the globe conducting scientific diplomacy and leading with discretion.
For her second sea tour, LT Levano was Operations Officer on NOAA Ship Thomas Jefferson, where she managed the day-to-day and long-term operations for the 35+ crew and two 29 ft survey vessels. Thomas Jefferson conducts routine surveys to support NOAA’s nautical charting mission on the Atlantic coast, as well as coordinating the first white ship operations in the Great Lakes in 35 years.
From 2018-2021 LT Levano was Officer in Charge and Chief of Party of NOAA’s Navigation Response Team- Seattle, where she brought online a 34-foot trailered survey launch and team. As OIC, she developed and executed the team’s operations, schedule, and budget to ensure readiness to respond to survey tasking and timely submission of high-quality hydrographic data. During this assignment LT Levano served on response teams for hurricanes Michael, Barry, and Dorian.
At the start of her NOAA career, LT Levano served as a junior officer aboard NOAA Ship Rainier, qualifying as an Officer of the Deck, Hydrographer-in-Charge, and hydrographic survey launch coxswain. Other duties included public relations, damage control, medical person in charge, and training officer for 50+ crew members onboard.
A native of Long Island, New York, LT Levano holds a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Science from Roger Williams University and a certificate in Maritime Management from Pacific Lutheran University. Throughout and after college, she worked in the shellfish industry raising calms and oysters, and still enjoys farmed shellfish whenever she can.
