Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, UC Berkeley

Michael is a research contributor to the Fuel Mapping & Fire Physics Team. He is broadly interested in fire science problems, utilizing experiments as well as combustion and fluid dynamics theory to solve problems related to fire spread, material flammability, and smoke transport. Much of his work focuses on wildfires, including their spread through vegetation, ignition of structures in the wildland-urban interface (WUI), transport of embers, fire whirls, and emissions from wildfire smoke. He was a faculty member in the Department of Fire Protection Engineering at the University of Maryland–College Park before joining the faculty at UC Berkeley. Michael holds bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in Mechanical Engineering from UC San Diego.