Cresswell is the Ogilvie Professor of Human Geography at the University of Edinburgh having formally served as the Dean of the Faculty and Vice President for Academic Affairs at Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut.
He resigned in 2019 to move back into research as the Ogilvie Chair at the University of Edinburgh.
Cresswell is the author of six books on the role of place and mobility in cultural life, co-editor of four collections and an inaugural managing editor of the journal, "GeoHumanities".
He is also a poet and the author of three collections published by Penned in the Margins "Soil" (2013), "Fence" (2015) and "Plastiglomerate" (2020).
[5][6] "Fence" was a result of Cresswell's participation in the artist Alex Hartley's nowhere island project.