His research activities investigate how the brain translates patterns of light received in the eye into complex behaviours. His lab brings together biologists, psychologists and engineers to study biological vision systems and translates this knowledge into the development of biologically inspired engineering solutions.
In 2006 he was appointed as the head of the Visual Sciences Group at the ANU, a highly interdisciplinary research department with an annual research budget in excess of $3M, covering topics as diverse as the development of clinical tests for eye diseases through to arthropod vision. He is currently the chair of the Executive Committee of the Eccles Institute of Neuroscience at the ANU. He is a regular reviewer for 11 international journals including Nature Neuroscience, The Journal of Neuroscience and Current Biology.
He is a panel Deputy Chair for the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), an OzReader for the Australian Research Council (ARC) and a reviewer for National Science
Foundation (NSF) grants. He is an active member of the Australian Neuroscience Society (ANS) and the Society for Neuroscience (SfN).
