Chris' early academic background was in Japanese studies. He was a high school exchange student in Japan, studied Japanese language, culture and history at university in Australia, and then studied Japanese language, philosophy and international relations (in Japanese) as a university exchange student in Japan. Upon graduation, Chris began his teaching career by teaching English to Japanese university students in Japan. After Chris returned to Australia, he studied linguistics at the University of New South Wales, taught Japanese to Australian students and English to international students, and he lectured in linguistics and academic writing to domestic and international university students. Since 2004, Chris has been involved in teaching and researching academic writing in foundation studies programs and enabling courses in Australia. His main academic interests include academic literacies, testing and evaluation, and enabling education. He has presented at conferences on in Australia and in China, he he has published on enabling education in Australia. More recently, Chris has been involved in a research project that benchmarks the enabling programs that comprise over 50% of the enabling students in Australia.

Chris completed a Bachelor of Arts (Japanese) at Griffith University, which including one year of study at Gifu University in Japan. He also completed a Master of Arts (Applied Linguistics) at the University of New South Wales. 

Chris taught English at Trinity Academic (Nagoya, Japan), linguistics at the University of New South Wales, academic writing at Western Sydney University, English at Taylor's College Sydney, academic literacies at the University of Technology Sydney, and essay and technical writing at CQUniversity. Chris has been a Head Teacher, a Program Manager, Head of Course, and a Deputy Associate Dean (Learning and Teaching). 

Chris is a member of the National Association of Enabling Educators Australia (NAEEA).