Associate Professor in Global Studies a),  School or Arts and Social Sciences, Monash University Malaysia.  He holds a PhD from the University of Melbourne (Political Science).

Before joining Monash Malaysia in August 2021, Michael worked as a lecturer in a number of institutions including Thammasat University, La Trobe University, University of Leeds, City University of Hong Kong, University of Nottingham, Malaysia Campus and Xi’an Jiaotong University, China. Among his service roles are Head of Department (XJTLU),  Head of School (Nottingham), Director of Research (XJTLU), and Faculty Chair, Graduate Studies (La Trobe). He was in 2016-2017 a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Asian Studies, Chulalongkorn University, where he convened a workshop on political ideologies, commenced a translation project (Thai to English), and wrote several papers on populism, corruption and political theory.

Michael currently views his work as lying in the emerging field of global area studies. He has a keen interest in local manifestations of global moments, including political events, ideas and culture. Many of his publications explore these through a study of Thailand. He also works in the area of International Relations and is especially interested in the foreign policies of Australia, Thailand and Japan, Gramscian IR, and the politics of civilisade. He currently serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Contemporary Asia and Asian Review.

His research has been funded by the Australian Research Council, the British Academy of the Humanities and Social Sciences and the Australian Academy of the Humanities, among others. 

Research Interests according to FOR (ARC)

Historical Studies, Government and Politics of the Asia Pacific, Political Theory and Philosophy

Supervision and Area Interests 

Democracy (critiques, theories, democratisation), political Ideologies, studies of the state, Thailand, Southeast Asia , foreign policies of Australia and Japan; nationalism, populism, political corruption, cultural policy, comparative political theory, global intellectual history (Southeast Asia focus).