MICHAEL HOLZ graduated as a geologist in 1983 and received a doctorate in geosciences in 1995. As a recent graduate, he worked with topography and geotechnical surveying. From 1986 until 2020 he developed his career as a university professor, first at UFRGS (Porto Alegre / RS) and then at UFBA (Salvador / BA). He was researcher 1 at CNPq from 1996 to 2024, having published dozens of book chapters and scientific articles throughout his career, in important journals such as Boletim de Geociências da Petrobrás, Sedimentary Geology, Marine and Petroleum Geology, Journal of Coal Geology, Journal of African Earth Science, Energy Exploration & Exploitation, Sedimentology, Facies, Journal of South American Earth Science, Zeitschrift fur Geologische Wissenschaften, and Pure and Applied Geophysics.

He authored the textbook "Sequence Stratigraphy - history, principles and applications", published in 2012; and developed R&D projects with universities such as UFRN-PPGG, UFPR, UFRJ-COPPE and UFSC; institutions such as CT-Petro/CNPq, ANP and IBP, and companies such as El Paso do Brasil, Petrobrás, Panoro Energy and Geopark E&P; always related to stratigraphic analysis and characterization of aquifers and hydrocarbon and coal bed methane reservoirs, as well as consultant and instructor of professional refresher courses. Throughout his career, his projects focused many Brazilian basins: Santos, Pelotas, Paraná, São Francisco, Recôncavo, Camamu, Jacuipe Serigpe-Alagoas, and more recently the Ceará basin. In 2020 he retired from the university, but continues to work in the postgraduate program in geophysics at UFBA and is a collaborating professor at PPGEO at UFSC (Federal University of Santa Catarina), as an advisor for M.Sc. and ph.D. candidates.