He holds the Bill and Patricia Ritchie Foundation Chair and is a Conjoint Professor in the faculty of medicine at UNSW Sydney.
[3] In 1997 Goodnow joined the faculty at the Australian National University as professor and founding director of the Medical Genome Centre, leading its development into a major national research facility, the Australian Phenomics Facility.
In 2015 he joined the Garvan Institute of Medical Research as deputy director to translate genomic DNA sequence analysis of the human immune system into understanding the cause of immune disorders and developing more effective, personalised treatments.
[2] During this period Goodnow oversaw the development of the Garvan-Weizmann Centre for Cellular Genomics in partnership with the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel,[4][5] the only multidisciplinary centre of its kind in the southern hemisphere as well as playing a key role in the development of the Clinical Immunogenomics Research Consortium Australia (CIRCA).
[7] Goodnow is well known for leading a 1980 expedition to Indonesia's remote Mentawai Islands off the coast of Sumatra, discovering the now-famous surf breaks and a wave that is today considered one of the world's best, Macaronis.