I was awarded my PhD from Adelaide University and undertook postdoctoral studies in the United States before joining CSIRO as a Queen Elizabeth II Fellow. I subsequently moved to ANU where eventually I became Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in 1995. In 1999, I took up the Chair of Biochemistry at the University of Western Australia and later moved to the University of Sydney where I was Executive Dean of the Faculties of Science. I returned to Adelaide at the end of 2009 to take up the role of Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research) at Flinders University. I retired from management in 2015 and now have a fractional appointment in the School of Biological Sciences at Flinders University and in the School of Life and Environmental Sciences at the University of Sydney

My research focuses on carbon and nitrogen fixation in plants, with an emphasis on respiration and its involvement in plant responses to environmenal stresses, and symbiotic nitrogen fixation in legumes, where I study how soil bacteria, rhizobia, interact with the plant, focusing on nutrient transport across symbiotic membranes. Soybean, chickpea, rice and barley are the main crop plants under investigation.