Professor Michl is one of the leading chemists in the world. He has earned an international reputation in the close integration of experiment and theory in his research. His publications span an extraordinary breadth of areas, including organic, inorganic, analytical, physical, and theoretical chemistry. He has, in particular, been instrumental in the current understanding of organic photochemistry. His applications of novel methodologies in matrix isolation spectroscopy have been groundbreaking, leading to a deeper knowledge of the fundamental properties of highly reactive and high-energy molecules. His studies on silicon reactive intermediates and oligosilanes have been instrumental in the understanding of photochemical processes in silicon-based polymers. He has long enjoyed a fruitful collaboration with scientists at IBM, helping to produce currently used photoresists and new optical storage systems. In recent years, he has focused on new classes of rigid-rod molecules, systems he has termed 'staffanes', as well as oligomeric carboranes, to assemble ordered materials with interesting and useful physical properties -- a molecular-sized 'Tinkertoy' set.

Professor Michl has received numerous awards including a Sloan Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Humboldt Senior US Scientist Award, the Utah Section Award and the Cope Scholar Award from the American Chemical Society, the Schrödinger Medal from the World Association of Theoretical Organic Chemists, the 1994 award from the Inter-American Photochemical Society, the Heyrovsky Gold Medal from the Czech Academy of Sciences, and the Gold Medal of the Charles University in Prague. In 1986, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and in 1988 to the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science. He is a WATOC Fellow and an honorary member of the Czech Learned Society. Professor Michl is currently the editor of Chemical Reviews and is an Editorial Board member of Accounts of Chemical Research, Bulletin of the Chemical Society of Japan, Chemistry-a European Journal, Collection of Czechoslovak Chemical Communications, and International Journal of Quantum Chemistry. He had a long association with IUPAC, where he chaired the Photochemistry Commission from 1985 through 1989. He has co-authored five books on photochemistry and polarization spectroscopy, several patents, and over 400 scientific papers. His current areas of interest are modular chemistry, highly reactive molecules, molecular electronic structure, silicon and boron chemistry, and photochemistry.