He secured a Fulbright Scholarship to the University of California Santa Barbara, USA where he completed a master's degree in 1977.
He completed his PhD at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland in 1982, working on post-fire dynamics of heathland communities, supervised by Prof Charles Gimingham.
His first postdoctoral research position was at Stanford University, working with Hal Mooney on serpentine grassland dynamics.
In 2000, he took up a Chair in Environmental Science at Murdoch University and was awarded an ARC Australian Professorial Fellowship in 2006.
His current activity focuses on researching and writing for the website The Nature of Music, which examines the sustainability and conservation issues associated with the materials for guitar-making.