Michael joined the Dawson Lab in 2011 under UCLA's ACCESS program and received his PhD in Cellular and Molecular Pathology in 2015. While in the Dawson Lab, Michael studied the role of WNT7B in autocrine Wnt/β-catenin signaling and the effects of ICG-001 and calcipotriol in pancreatic cancer.

He is currently a Postdoctoral Scholar at Pfizer investating the effects of autophagy manipulation in tumor cells on the immune response to cancer.