He spent one year as a visiting graduate student at Cornell University in 1979.

[2] He was a lecturer at the School of Engineering at Hokkaido University from 1982 to 1983, and an associate professor from 1983 to 1994.

From 2010 until March 2018, Ohno served as the director of the Center for Spintronics Integrated Systems.

He was tipped as a possible candidate to receive a Nobel Prize in 2011, for his work in spintronics.

[5] Ohno later in 2021 became an international fellow at the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA).