As the Research & Policy Manager, Michael leads the organization’s Clean Water Program and provides technical policy support across a range of environmental justice and public health issues. Michael is trained as a policy researcher, analyst, and economist, and brings a technical, data-driven, and environmental justice lens to PSR-LA’s policy work. His work supports advocacy, legislative strategy, coalition efforts, and community-centered solutions related to drinking water affordability and quality, hazardous waste cleanups, plastics, pesticides, industrial pollution, and broader environmental health challenges.

Michael’s passion for environmental justice began as a physics student when a professor assigned The Dance of Legislation. The line: “If politicians do their job right, then there would be no need for as many physicians” shifted his career path. The same professor later connected him to cleanup efforts at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, located near his hometown of Thousand Oaks.

Michael earned a Master of Public Policy from the University of California, Los Angeles, with a focus on environmental justice and public health, and a B.A. in Environmental Studies with a focus in Policy and Law-Making from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Michael is a die hard Los Angeles Kings fan.