Christopher Michel

She had come to Santa Fe to slow down, or maybe to fall apart in peace. It was hard to tell which. The days passed with the smell of rain on dust, long walks on gravel roads, and books left open and unread beside half-empty glasses of iced tea. #photography

cc the @nationalacademies.org @caltech.edu

Pamela Bjorkman Pamela Bjorkman sat on the couch in her Caltech office, a bouquet of molecular models in one hand and her dog Bilbo pressed warmly into her side. Bilbo had no intention of letting the moment pass without offering lots of love for his dog-mom. She smiled without moving, eyes forward, letting him have his moment. It was a portrait of ease, of affection, and of the rare kind of person who can hold the complexity of the immune system in one hand and her beloved pup in the other.

Pamela Bjorkman

Pamela Bjorkman sat on the couch in her Caltech office, a bouquet of molecular models in one hand and her dog Bilbo pressed warmly into her side. Bilbo had no intention of letting the moment pass without offering lots of love for his dog-mom. She smiled without moving, eyes…

Only two likes on my last post. I must be way out on the fringe with the algorithms on Blue Sky. I will try this one more time. #monumentvalley

Storm clouds form over an amber field

Heartland

#photography

cheers

Alone. #Svalbard

@nam.edu @nationalacademies.org

Robert Califf I photographed Dr. Robert Califf at the National Academies, where the quiet hum of long debate and careful consensus seems to suit him. He stood for the portrait without hesitation, arms loosely crossed, bow tie neatly tied, his expression somewhere between a smile and a pause. He carries himself like a man used to long meetings, heavy questions, and the steady work of making science serve people.

Robert Califf

I photographed Dr. Robert Califf at the National Academies, where the quiet hum of long debate and careful consensus seems to suit him. He stood for the portrait without hesitation, arms loosely crossed, bow tie neatly tied, his expression somewhere between a smile and a pause. He…

Rusty Schweickart On a foggy morning in Petaluma, I photographed Rusty Schweickart at Stewart Brand & Ryan Phelan's ranch. Fog from the coast softened the horizon, muting the light. The moment was still, and Rusty was too. A man who once floated above Earth now stood on steel rails, among olive trees and mist, at ease in both realms. As lunar module pilot on Apollo 9, Rusty played a vital role in the Moon landing’s success.

Rusty Schweickart

On a foggy morning in Petaluma, I photographed Rusty Schweickart at Stewart Brand & Ryan Phelan's ranch. Fog from the coast softened the horizon, muting the light. The moment was still, and Rusty was too. A man who once floated above Earth now stood on steel rails, among olive…

San Francisco in July

Picture of fog over San Francisco that's heading downtown to hide the AI overlords

✔️ Work every day for a month
✔️ Break 40+ year records
✔️ End ☁️No Sky July☁️ with a bang

svalbard?

New Heroes portrait of @nobelprize.bsky.social laureate David Baltimore for the @nationalacademies.org. @caltech.edu @nasonline.org Story: explorers.com/david-baltim...

🙏

Walter Isaacson Walter Isaacson has spent his life exploring the nature of genius. His subjects are familiar: Einstein, Franklin, Jobs, Leonardo, Doudna…but the stories he tells are never tidy. He is drawn to complexity, to people who live at the edge of disciplines, who fail often, who change course, who obsess. In his hands, biography becomes something more than a chronology of achievement.

Walter Isaacson

Walter Isaacson has spent his life exploring the nature of genius. His subjects are familiar: Einstein, Franklin, Jobs, Leonardo, Doudna…but the stories he tells are never tidy. He is drawn to complexity, to people who live at the edge of disciplines, who fail often, who change…

Marianne Bronner Marianne Bronner has profoundly advanced our knowledge of how complex organisms develop. Her research focuses on the neural crest, a fascinating group of cells that originate near the developing spinal cord and migrate throughout the embryo, differentiating into diverse structures such as facial bones and skin pigment cells. For decades, Bronner has meticulously studied their journeys, revealing the mechanisms behind their remarkable transformations.

Marianne Bronner

Marianne Bronner has profoundly advanced our knowledge of how complex organisms develop. Her research focuses on the neural crest, a fascinating group of cells that originate near the developing spinal cord and migrate throughout the embryo, differentiating into diverse structures…

Kurt Wüthrich Kurt Wüthrich has the kind of presence that quietly commands the room. When I photographed him at Scripps in 2022, he stood with the self-possession of someone who has spent a lifetime inside the machinery of precision. No theatrics, no performance. Just a steady gaze and the unmistakable air of someone who knows exactly what he’s doing. Wüthrich is best known for developing nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy to study biological macromolecules in solution.

Kurt Wüthrich

Kurt Wüthrich has the kind of presence that quietly commands the room. When I photographed him at Scripps in 2022, he stood with the self-possession of someone who has spent a lifetime inside the machinery of precision. No theatrics, no performance. Just a steady gaze and the…

Paul Davies Paul Davies has spent a lifetime pursuing the kinds of questions that hover just beyond the reach of conventional science. Where did the universe come from? Why is it intelligible? Could life arise elsewhere, and if it did, would it look anything like us? He is a theoretical physicist by training, but his work lives in the fertile space where physics meets philosophy, cosmology meets biology, and science begins to tilt toward wonder.

Paul Davies

Paul Davies has spent a lifetime pursuing the kinds of questions that hover just beyond the reach of conventional science. Where did the universe come from? Why is it intelligible? Could life arise elsewhere, and if it did, would it look anything like us? He is a theoretical physicist…

Cherish everything and everyone 🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤
#nature #photography

Love above the city, color in the fog. @sutrotower.bsky.social calling all dreamers with beams of wild light. A cathedral of steel and lasers, born of Ben Davis and the @illuminatethearts.bsky.social crew. That night, San Francisco looked up and knew the dream was real. #Photography

Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo stood by the windows of UCSF Parnassus as the afternoon light softened around her. It was 2021, a year when medicine felt both burdened and newly illuminated. She was calm, composed, and entirely engaged. There was no showmanship. Just quiet authority born from years of asking hard questions and insisting on better answers. She is a physician and an epidemiologist, but titles only begin to tell the story.

Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo

Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo stood by the windows of UCSF Parnassus as the afternoon light softened around her. It was 2021, a year when medicine felt both burdened and newly illuminated. She was calm, composed, and entirely engaged. There was no showmanship. Just quiet…

Lisa Randall She didn’t need a lab coat or a chalkboard full of equations to signal her brilliance. When I met Lisa Randall, she stood casually against a column in the warm light of a quiet hallway, dressed in textured layers that suggested both ease and intention. Her smile came easily, but behind it was a kind of steady attention, as if her mind was gently running parallel to the moment.

Lisa Randall

She didn’t need a lab coat or a chalkboard full of equations to signal her brilliance. When I met Lisa Randall, she stood casually against a column in the warm light of a quiet hallway, dressed in textured layers that suggested both ease and intention. Her smile came easily, but…

Cleaning out my office.

This is surprisingly difficult.

I’ve loved the @moraneyecenter.bsky.social and all the people here (well, most of them) and owe my career to this place and its former chair, Randall Olson.

Looking forward to continuing our science at @pittdeptofmed.bsky.social.

Beautiful. And so cool!

Sunday is #Stunday

A foggy sunrise in the meadow of #Yosemite National Park.

#EastCoastKin #Photography

Gene Kranz When I photographed Gene Kranz at his old console in the Mission Control Center at Johnson Space Center in 2022, it felt like entering a time capsule. The room had been restored to the exact state it was in at 3:18 p.m. on July 20, 1969. The moment the world heard, “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.” Coffee cups still sat on the consoles.

Gene Kranz

When I photographed Gene Kranz at his old console in the Mission Control Center at Johnson Space Center in 2022, it felt like entering a time capsule. The room had been restored to the exact state it was in at 3:18 p.m. on July 20, 1969. The moment the world heard, “Houston, Tranquility…

The Satya of Satya’s Layoff Memo “The tournament of today – a set-to between labor and monopoly. To paraphrase Sigmund Freud, sometimes a memo is not just a memo. That’s why we have to read between …

I know it has been a while. I have not been writing as much. And staying off the locals, enjoying books and analog life. However, this “memo” from @microsoft.com CEO prompted me to cut through the corporate speak. I read between the lines and this is my analysis! om.co/2025/07/26/t...

Totally

The Day The Sun Didn't Rise - Christopher Michel San Francisco under smoke

Remembering the 2020 wildfires in San Francisco: www.christophermichel.com/Travel/The-D...