His work focuses on the human aspects of data science; ethics and values in applications of AI to human issues; and human-AI collaboration and co-creativity in generative AI.

Michael has led medium- and large- scale activities in the ACM and NeurIPS communities, including ACM SIGCHI workshop on generative AI and CHI (2022; proposed for 2023), critical data science studies (2020), and two years as lead of the NeurIPS workshop on human-centered AI, and lead-organizer for a FAccT 2022 panel. He is currently co-chair of the subcommittee on critical and sustainable computing for the CHI 2023 conference, and has served as subcommittee co-chair for two years of the ACM SIGCHI DIS conference. He has previously served as papers co-chair for the ACM SIGCHI GROUP conference (2016) and the EUSSET European Computer Supported Cooperative Work conference (2019).

Michael serves as co-chair of ACM SIGCHI CARES; he serves as CARES liaison to several SIGCHI conferences. Michael is a member of the ACM SIGCHI Research Ethics committee, and has conducted ethics reviews for the FAccT and NeurIPS conferences. He is an active member of Fempower.tech and AccessSIGCHI.

ACM has recognized Michael as an ACM Distinguished Scientist. ACM SIGCHI has recognized Michael as a member of the CHI Academy.