His research has concentrated on the Mambila people of Cameroon, endangered languages and Cameroonian photographers such as Samuel Finlak, Joseph Chila and the late Jacques Toussele.

[citation needed] He received his Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in anthropology from the University of Cambridge in 1990 supervised by Esther Goody.

[6] Following that, he spent a brief spell as the inaugural IT officer at the Pitt Rivers Museum during which time he developed a networked catalog using a relational database system.

As well as his ongoing research in Cameroon (mainly with Mambila People), Zeitlyn has been involved in ways of using the Internet to make anthropological material available since before the web was invented.

[12][citation needed] At the University of Kent Zeitlyn worked with Mike Fischer to develop the Centre of Social Anthropology and Computing (CSAC) on a variety of projects.

"[19] and "For Augustinian archival openness and laggardly sharing" [20] Following a workshop in Yaoundé, Cameroon in 2013 he helped found an online journal with two Cameroonian colleagues "Vestiges: Traces of Record".