Michael formally retired as Senior Curator, Torres Strait Islander and Pacific Indigenous Studies at the Queensland Museum in July 2010 and is now an Honorary Associate in the Cultural Environments group at the Museum. Michael trained as an archaeologist, studying the prehistory of West and South Asia and Aboriginal Australia at the Universities of Sydney and New England and at the Deccan College Postgraduate & Research Institute, Pune, India. He began his museological career at the University of Sydney's Nicholson Museum. Moving to Queensland in 1968, he became responsible for the Queensland Museum's anthropological collections, including the prehistory and material culture of Australian and Melanesian indigenous peoples. Michael focused on the material culture, Kastom and social history of Queensland's Torres Strait Islander and Australian South Sea Islander communities, as well as the material culture of Melanesia, particularly Papua New Guinea.Michael has been privileged to work with both the Torres Strait Islander and Australian South Sea Islander communities and is grateful for the opportunity to continue doing this. In his role as Honorary Associate he has worked with the ARC Discovery Project Team for the University of Sydney, Australian Museum, Queensland Museum project "Excavating MacGregor: re-connecting a colonial museum collection" and was privileged to participate as co-author of several papers and chapters in the publication "Excavating MacGregor: Reconnecting a nineteenth century collection from Papua New Guinea" edited by Robin Torrence, Memoirs of the Queensland Museum-Culture 13, 2022.Michael continues to act as an Honorary Associate of Queensland Museum from a distance, he now lives in southern Lutrawita/Tasmania.