Michael earned his PhD in 2013 in the lab of Ueli Grossniklaus at the University of Zurich studying the epigenetic phenomenon of genomic imprinting during seed development. From 2014 to 2018, he was an SNSF- and LSRF-sponsored postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Dominique Bergmann at Stanford University. In Stanford, he started to study how developmental innovations affect form and function of grass stomata, which are tiny pores through which plants “breathe” and exchange gases with the environment. In 2018, Michael started his independent research group at the Centre for Organismal Studies at Heidelberg University, Germany. In 2022, Michael’s group moved to the University of Bern in Switzerland. His lab is using developmental genetics, microscopy and gas-exchange physiology in the wheat relative and grass model Brachypodium distachyon to link the unique form of grass stomata to their superior functionality.