Mike joined MIT's Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering in 2001 as a 1st year undergraduate researcher, and never left. Now he is a Full Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering, having held nearly every possible academic job in that timespan. He and his group have spent 23 years studying coupled effects and challenges facing materials for nuclear power, for both fission and fusion. The group has made surprising discoveries ranging from radiation decelerated corrosion in molten salts to direct measurement of stored energy of radiation damage, to methods for detecting historical uranium enrichment for non-proliferation treaty verification.

He is also a Scientific Advisor in A*STAR’s Institute of Materials Research and Engineering (IMRE), where he advises and helps guide teams working on major coupled challenges to create and expand the fusion material/component supply chain.

Mike has been coming to Singapore every year since 2012 under the auspices of the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), and liked it so much that he recently spent a sabbatical at A*STAR to better understand and participate in Singapore’s leadership of the clean energy transition in the ASEAN region and worldwide.