In 1998, he was named as the university's first D. B. Willett College of Engineering Professor, "in recognition of his research and his outstanding teaching reputation".

[1] This led to years of collaborative and highly productive research with Swedish colleagues[6] that eventually earned Greene the position of Tage Erlander Professor of Materials Physics at Linköping University[5][7] beginning in 1994.

[7][8] Over the course of his career, Greene supervised over seventy Ph.D. students at the three universities where he held professorships, as well as hosting over 100 visiting scientists and post-doctoral researchers.

[9] Greene and his research team conducted the first systematic study of the effects of the ion/metal flux ratio and ion energy on microstructure evolution in hard coatings.

[3] In addition, his work on the development of Si atomic layer epitaxy (ALE), including mapping the basic surface science of Si ALE, are considered seminal contributions in that field and the real-world application of these studies "has since been implemented by electronic companies in the United States and Japan".