[1][2] He received a PhD from Griffith University in 1988 for work on mating in butterflies.
[5] He and co-author Vincent J. Kalkman were awarded the 2013 Whitley Medal by the Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales for Field Guide to the damselflies of New Guinea.
[2] The Butterflies of Australia received a favourable review i Austral Ecology for being accessible to a less specialist audience, but still providing a large amount of quality scientific insights, and thereby being an excellent complement to Michael Braby's encyclopaedic and definitive Butterflies of Australia.
[7] Complete Field Guide to Dragonflies of Australia (second edition), illustrated by Orr, was called an ”invaluable resource” in the Royal Entomological Society’s Review.
[8] He has published four more guides to dragonflies and damselflies of Asia, as the sole author in collaboration with other entomologists.