Norbert J. Michel was the director of Heritage's Center for Data Analysis, where he specialized on issues pertaining to financial markets and monetary policy. He edited, and contributed chapters, to two books published by Heritage: The Case Against Dodd–Frank: How the “Consumer Protection” Law Endangers Americans, and Prosperity Unleashed: Smarter Financial Regulation.

Before rejoining Heritage in 2013, Michel was a tenured professor at Nicholls State University’s College of Business, teaching finance, economics and statistics. His earlier stint at Heritage was as a tax policy analyst in the think tank’s Center for Data Analysis from 2002 to 2005. He previously was with the global energy company Entergy, where he built a logistic regression model to help predict bankruptcies of commercial clients. His work allowed Entergy to better monitor monetary losses caused by customers’ delinquent payments.

Michel holds a doctoral degree in financial economics from the University of New Orleans. He received his bachelor of business administration degree in finance and economics from Loyola University. He currently resides in Alexandria, VA.