Michael has a PhD in physical chemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Michael joined LLNL in 2004 as a postdoctoral researcher, focusing on microgasanalyzers and detectors based on carbon nanotubes. He joined Target Fabrication in NIF& Photon Sciences in 2007, and became a staff scientist in 2008. In 2015, he was appointed the S&T lead for Target Fabrication, and in 2018 he was appointed Deputy Program Manager for Target Fabrication.

Michael has been leading energy and environment related projects since 2010 and has led projects on supercapacitors, batteries, and desalination. In 2018, he led the creation of the Laboratory for Energy Applications for the Future (LEAF), a center that coordinates energy and environmental research at LLNL, and was appointed its director in 2019.

For a complete list of publications, please see Michael's Google Scholar page.