Jeg startede min karriere med 6 års ansættelse som biolog ved Miljøstyrelsens Havforureningslaboratorium, hvor jeg blev stærkt involveret i blandt andet Cheminova's kviksølv-forurening af farvandene omkring Harboøre Tange. Jeg forsvarede min doktordisputats i 1982 som 31-årig og blev året efter ansat som lektor ved Syddansk Universitet (dengang Odense Universitet), hvor jeg i nu mange år har undervist i økologi og marinbiologi. Jeg har jeg ofte blandet mig i miljøspørgsmål, og sideløbende med publicering af 170 videnskabelige artikler i internationale fagtidsskrifter, har jeg også publiceret omkring 50 populærvidenskabelige artikler på dansk om aktuelle miljøspørgsmål: olieforurening, tungmetalforurening, iltsvind, eutrofiering, global opvarmning, masseforekomst af gopler. I 2008 blev jeg udnævnt til professor i marinbiologi med fast arbejdsplads på Marinbiologisk Forskningscenter i Kerteminde.

I started my career with 6 years of employment as a biologist at the Danish Environmental Agency's Marine Pollution Laboratory (1977-1983), where I used the blue mussel as monitoring organism and became involved in studies on especially eutrophication and mercury pollution in Limfjorden. I received my PhD and DSc from the University of Copenhagen in 1979 and 1982, respectively. In 1983 I became Associate Professor at the University of Southern Denmark (former Odense University) where I have since been teaching general ecology and marine biology. In 2008, I was appointed Professor of Marine Biology. Over the years I have supervised multiple Bachelor, Master and PhD projects. My research deals mainly with filter-feeding marine invertebrates, and my research profile includes: bioenergetics, particle capture mechanisms, switching between deposit and filter-feeding, population grazing impact of benthic filter-feeders, predation impact of ctenophores and jellyfish, mussels as pollution indicators, environmental assessment, uptake of pollutants in the grazing food chain. I have often been involved in environmental issues, and in parallel with publication of some 170 scientific articles in international journals, I have also published some 50 popular scientific articles in Danish on current environmental problems: oil pollution, heavy metal pollution, oxygen depletion, eutrophication, global warming, degradation of the ozon layer, mass occurrence of jellyfish.