Mike is a postdoctoral researcher at the Soft Matter group in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics. His work in Cambridge focuses on active matter systems and, in particular, on non-equilibrium statistical field theories and rare events.

He gained the degree of MPhys Mathematical Physics from the University of Edinburgh in 2021. His master’s thesis was on supersymmetric solutions in four-dimensional supergravity theories. At the end of his studies, he was awarded the Tait Medal and Tait Prize.

He then moved to Germany, to the department of Living Matter Physics at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization in Göttingen, where he conducted his PhD studies under the supervision of Prof. Ramin Golestanian and Dr. Jaime Agudo-Canalejo. He finished his doctoral studies in October 2024 where he graduated summa cum laude. The main focus of his thesis was the stochastic dynamics and thermodynamics of molecular active matter systems, which includes the development of mechanistic descriptions for molecular machines, strategies for de novo design of enzymes, thermodynamically consistent descriptions of enzymes or microswimmers, and synchronization and cooperative phenomena in systems of molecular oscillators.

After the end of his PhD, he held a short post-doc position at the same department in Göttingen, where he continued working on different projects related to active matter systems. Some of these projects included collaborations with experimental groups, in which the flow behavior inside enzymatic droplets, and the collective behavior in systems of active colloids were investigated.