On the busiest of days, counting the number of people who walk into Michael’s office could be considered a pastime. But there are calm days too, of course – for Michael, no two days are the same. “One day I'm reading documents for a Directors Committee at VIB, and the next I'm building shelves with Tom [logistics at CCB] because we need to reorganize the viral room”, says Michael.

This extreme broadness was exactly what ignited his interest in the position of Operations Manager at CCB. Along with the other members of the administration core, Michael’s job is to do whatever is necessary to allow our scientists to solely focus on their research. "Within the center, there are many matters to attend to that are not directly related to pure research like finance, IT, HR, or logistics. In the administration core, we try to make sure these matters take up the least possible time from our researchers". 

Michael understands the importance of this very well, as he was once a researcher too. His interest in science started at an early age, and dinosaurs were the trigger of it all. “When I was around 10 years old, I became super interested in everything connected to paleontology. The whole concept of digging into scientific topics to find things that we didn’t know before has always been a big part of it all for me.” With time, his interest in science evolved and expanded. Biology, Chemistry, and Physics became some of his favorite subjects, and he eventually decided to pursue Biomedical Sciences.

When Michael stepped up as Operations Manager in 2022, his experience as a scientist amounted to more than 15 years. From Bachelor’s to Master’s, from Master’s to PhD, from PhD to Lab Manager, Michael learned what it took to move science forward. And although looking through a microscope is no longer part of his daily tasks, science is still all around him. “I am not in the lab anymore, but I still enjoy just simply listening to, for instance, group leaders explaining what the next best technology is, and how they're going to use it to solve unmet needs in science. That is actually very cool.”

And so is Michael. You can always count on him to bring a smile to work every day, and a great attitude along with it. We really couldn’t do it without him!