Michiel studied philosophy, biological psychology and the psychology of religion in Utrecht, Amsterdam and Njjmegen. He pursued his PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience at the Donders Institute in Nijmegen, followed by a post-doc position at the EPFL in Switzerland. Currently he is working as a researcher at the University of Amsterdam. His main interest is the cognitive science of religion and he focuses on topics such as absorption, agency detection and magical thinking.