His thirty-year career in research, teaching, management and leadership includes academic, management and leadership positions at the former University of Durban-Westville (UD-W: now University of KwaZulu Natal) as Full Professor and Head of the Department of Microbiology, as Director of Research Management and Development at the Durban University of Technology (DUT) and as the current DCEO of the NRF.
He has also spent time as Visiting Research Professor in the Department of Microbiology at Cornell University, USA; the Department of Applied Biology and Biotechnology at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) in Australia; the Department of Molecular Genetics and Cellular Microbiology at Goethe Universitat, Frankfurt, Germany; and the Department of Plant Pathology at the Scottish Crops Research Institute (SCRI) in Invergowrie, Dundee, Scotland.