Michael Birnbaum, PhD

Michael Birnbaum, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Dr. Birnbaum obtained his bachelor’s degree in Chemical and Physical Biology at Harvard University in 2008. He then moved to Stanford University, where he completed his PhD in Immunology in 2014.

At Stanford, he worked in Professor K. Christopher Garcia’s laboratory, studying the molecular mechanisms of T cell receptor recognition, cross-reactivity, and activation. He then conducted postdoctoral research in Professor Carla Shatz’s laboratory, studying novel roles for immune receptors expressed by neurons in neural development and neurodegenerative disease.