He is a senior scientist at the Sainsbury Laboratory and professor of biology at the University of East Anglia (UEA).

[7] He demonstrated how antagonistic coevolution with host plants has impacted the architecture of pathogen genomes, accelerated the evolution of effector genes, and drove the emergence of immune receptor networks.

He was on the faculty of the Department of Plant Pathology (Ohio State University, Wooster campus) from 1998 to 2007, before joining The Sainsbury Laboratory in 2007.

He served as Head of The Sainsbury Laboratory from 2009 to 2014 and also holds the rank of professor of biology at the University of East Anglia.

[15] In 2018, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS)[7] and he received the Linnean Medal for his outstanding contributions to plant science.