Mike Podmaniczky was in the first graduating class of the Conservation Analytical Laboratory's Furniture Conservation Program in Washington, DC, receiving a certificate from the Smithsonian Institution and an M.A. in Decorative Arts Conservation from Antioch University in 1990. He received a B.A. in Studio Art with departmental honors in 1970 from Kenyon College. He is a past chairman of the Wooden Artifacts Group of the AIC and is a professional associate of the AIC. His experience prior to studying conservation was as a machinist and model maker and then as a furniture maker, foundry patternmaker, and boat builder. After 21 years at Winterthur, Mike accepted a three-year position as Head of the Furniture and Related Objects Conservation Program at West Dean College/ University of Sussex, Chichester, England. 

Before conservation, he published many articles and reviews in a variety of woodworking and boat building periodicals and was a Contributing Editor to Fine Woodworking magazine from 1985-1989. He has also published various furniture conservation papers in the AIC specialty group postprints, and has contributed papers to publications associated with The Gilding Symposium and Upholstery Conservation, as well as the Journal of the AIC and the AIC Newsletter, The Magazine Antiques, The Journal of the Chipstone Foundation, and The Catalogue of Antiques and Fine Arts. 

He was also one of four primary authors of the collection catalogue New England Furniture at Winterthur. Mike is a member of the class of 1989 of the Attingham Summer School on the English country house. He has also taught at the Smithsonian Institution, a five-week lecture series on gilding and furniture conservation in Poland and Hungary in the fall of 1993. 

His primary area of research continues to be 17th- and 18th-century cabinetmaking and woodworking practices. One result of his study lead to his acting as curator of the Winterthur exhibition: The Incredible Elastic Chairs of Samuel Gragg.

Mike currently maintains a private conservation practice. His clients have included  the Philadelphia Athenaeum, the Center for Art in Wood, the Rehoboth Art League, and the Biggs Museum along with many private clients. He also makes furniture, both traditional reproductions as well as contemporary studio furniture.​