Before joining the School of English, he was senior lecturer and head of English at the Church of Ireland College of Education, Rathmines. At tertiary level, he taught English on the BEd programme at Church of Ireland College of Education; the BA, BEd and MA programmes at St Patrick’s College, Drumcondra; the MPhil (in children's literature) programme at Trinity College Dublin; and the PGDipEd programme at University College Dublin. 

His doctoral research was in the areas of twentieth-century children’s/young adult literature and late-eighteenth/early nineteenth-century Romantic literature, while his master's degree focused on poetry and criticism, 1830 to 1890.

He is a founder member of the Irish Society for the Study of Children’s Literature, a member of the International Research Society for Children’s Literature, and a past member of the board of directors of Children’s Books Ireland. He also served as a member of the judging panel for the Reading Association of Ireland Book of the Year Awards and as chair of the Children's Books Ireland Book of the Year Awards. 

He was a visiting scholar at the University of Cambridge (Homerton College, Centre for Research in Children's Literature); the inaugural David Almond research fellow (Newcastle University and Seven Stories); a recipient of a Friends of the Princeton Library research grant; and, an Irish Research Council grant-awardee (with Dr Pádraic Whyte, TCD).

He is currently DCU co-principal investigator, with Dr Áine McGillicuddy (SALIS), for the 'G-Book 3' project (which aims to develop audience engagement activities for the social and emotional education of EU teens through gender-positive literature and digital technology). This €1.4 million project is co-funded by the European Commission and led by Centro MeTRa, Department of Interpretation and Translation, University of Bologna (see g-book.eu).