In January 2000 he took up the Chair of Applied Mathematics at the University of Tasmania. He has supervised a number of postdoctoral associates and Ph.D. students in on topics including fluid mechanics, MRI coil design, gravitational microlensing, and meteorology. Two of his former Honours students obtained Rhodes Scholarships to study at the University of Oxford, and a third obtained a British Government scholarship to study there too.
He has worked on ship hydrodynamics, shock waves in gases, and outflows from underwater explosions or stars. Most recently, he has proposed a model of fluid turbulence. He has also worked on the design of magnetic and radiofrequency coils used in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines in hospitals. Other research interests include modelling of disease spread and the behaviour of complex chemical reaction systems.