American actress Michaela Conlin was born on June 9, 1978 in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Of Chinese and Irish descent, she started acting when she was just six years old, and throughout her childhood has starred in several community and regional productions in her home state. She continued doing so during her years at Parkland High School in nearby South Whitehall Township. Upon graduation, she moved to New York and entered New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. While taking her theater degree, she starred in productions for the Atlantic Theater Company, and also traveled to Amsterdam to take up further training.
Conlin received exposure when she became a subject of the do!$#!#entary series The It Factor. The program, which aired in 2002, focused on new actors in New York City trying to lead successful careers. By the time, she already played small roles on both television and film; she’s been a guest on Law & Order and The Division, and appeared in films such as Love the Hard Way and Pipe Dream. She then moved to Los Angeles to pursue further opportunities; there she took a starring role, in the short-lived medical drama MDs. She played Maggie Yang, a young medical intern taken in by two renegade doctors (William Fitchner and John Hannah). Two years later, she got another starring role on television, appearing as outspoken political consultant Jinette McMahon in the short-lived legal drama, The D.A.
Conlin is most known, however, for her role in the successful crime drama, Bones. She played Angela Montenegro, a forensic artist at the Jeffersonian Institute and the best friend of Temperance Brennan (Emily Deschanel). Her character—a free-spirited wild child—often attempts to get her analytical best friend out of the lab. Recently, her character was revealed to be the son of ZZ Top lead vocalist Bill Gibbons.