Michaël De Volder obtained his bachelor and master degree in engineering from the University of Leuven. He subsequently started his PhD studies at the same University and in part at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. He then worked as a postdoc researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Michigan, Harvard University, and the University of Leuven. He also worked for several years at imec, an industry funded microelectronics research institute, before joining the Institute for Manufacturing at the University of Cambridge.