Michèle Tixier-Boichard finished her veterinary studies in 1981 and entered the department of Animal Genetics of INRA in 1981. After her Ph-D thesis, she joined the Laboratory of Génétique factorielle in 1985 to work on chicken genetics with Dr. P. Mérat. She was promoted Senior Research Scientist in July 1999 and is currently a scientist of the Research Unit 'Animal Genetics and Integrative Biology' (GABI) of INRA at Jouy-en-Josas.

She has been involved in European projects, being a partner of ChickMap (1995- 1998) and AvianDiv (1998-2000) and an invited expert in SEFABAR (sustainable breeding) and GLOBALDIV (characterization and management of animal genetic resources). She is involved in several international scientific collaborations regarding poultry genetics with Sweden, UK, Taiwan, Vietnam, Benin, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Cameroun and Morocco, including both phenotypic and molecular tools. She has published more than 90 papers in peer-reviewed journals, was a supervisor of 10 thesis and 15 master students.

She is a member of WPSA since 1989 and a member of the North-American Society of Poultry Science since 1990. She was elected Chairperson of WG n°3 'Breeding and Genetics' of the European Federation of WPSA (1994 -2002), Vice-President of the European Federation of WPSA (1998-2006), and Secretary of the French branch from 2002 to 2008. She was an invited speaker in several Regional or World Poultry conferences from 2000 to 2011. She has been elected Vice-president of the World Federation in 2004 and re-elected in 2008. She is a member of the editorial board of the World's Poultry Science Journal.