Michael William Bruford (6 June 1963 – 13 April 2023) was a Welsh molecular ecologist, conservation biologist and a professor at Cardiff University's School of Biosciences.

In addition to his research activities at Cardiff University, he was also director of the Frozen Ark project, which seeks to preserve threatened animal species by means of cryopreservation.

Initially a trustee, Bruford was director of the Frozen Ark project since 2015, the same year he became co-director (to Terry Marsden) of the Sustainable Places Institute in Cardiff.

Trained as a molecular biologist, Michael Bruford established links to behavioural ecology and conservation biology early on in his work.

One of his first publications together with Terry Burke and Nick Davies seeks to link insights from bird genetics to their mating and breeding behaviour in dunnocks.

[7] Together with Giorgio Bertorelle, Heidi Hauffe, Annapaola Rizzoli and Cristiano Vernesi, he edited the handbook Population Genetics for Animal Conservation (2009).