Michael Famiano received his B.S. from the University of Michigan in 1994, and his Ph.D. from The Ohio State University in 2001. After receiving his doctorate, Michael worked at the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (RIKEN) in Wako, Japan. During that time, he worked for the radioactive ion (RI) beam group in developing a detector to measure the short half-lives of exotic nuclei produced in the astrophysical r-process.

Upon leaving Japan, Michael spent three years at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL). As a nuclear astrophysicist, Michael spent time developing experiments to study the characteristics of exotic astrophysically interesting nuclei. Michael has also spent time developing and running experiments to study dense nuclear matter to better understand the interior of neutron stars.

Michael and his wife Nikki currently have two boys and one daughter.