He is the Emeritus Professor of Applied Language Studies at the School of Languages and Comparative Cultural Studies of the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Queensland.
[3] Sussex hosts a talkback program on language and linguistics on ABC radio in Queensland, Tasmania, South Australia and the Northern Territory and writes a weekly column, "Wordlimit", for The Courier-Mail newspaper.
[4] Sussex is a specialist in comparative linguistics, particularly of European languages, and takes an interest in the Slavic languages within this group.
He holds a PhD from the University of London in Russian Language and Comparative Linguistics.
[3] He is an honorary life member of the Alliance française and patron of the Institute of Professional Editors.