Since his PhD in the Theory of Condensed Matter, Mike has acquired over 35 years experience in the field of theory and simulation of materials. He worked at Harwell Laboratory (now AEA Technology), the Fritz-Haber-Institute in Berlin, the Max-Planck-Institut für Metallforschung in Stuttgart, and Queen's Unversity Belfast, where he was Professor in the Atomistic Theory of Materials and Head of the Atomistic Simulation Centre until joining Imperial in January 2006.

He was a founder member of the Thomas Young Centre - London Centre for Theory and Simulation of Materials, of which he is currently Deputy Director.

His main research interest is in exploring the links between electronic structure of materials, the behaviour of their atoms, thermodynamic functions and the evolution of microstructure. His joint appointment between the Departments of Physics and of Materials at Imperial is appropriate to the nature of this research.

Mike is a reviewer for the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft as well as an EPSRC and was a member of the Physics panel for RAE 2008.  He won the Born Medal in 2005 for contributions to the understanding of interatomic forces (the subject of his 2003 book) and for making links between atomic scale modelling and the structure and thermodynamics of interfaces.