Professor Baker has been conducting research in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry at The University of Western Australia since 1990. His research interests include biomaterials, polymers, and bioinorganic chemistry related to cancer, HIV AIDS, and other diseases. He has a PhD in organic chemistry from The University of Sydney (1988) and was employed as a research scientist at ICI Operations Australia (1987) and as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University (1988-1990) prior to joining UWA. Professor Baker has been a visiting research professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the National University of Singapore, the University of Houston, the University of Saskatchewan, and the University of London (Ontario). In 2010 he was awarded a fellowship by the National Science Foundation of Taiwan to undertake research at National Dong Hwa University, Taiwan. He has over 100 research publications.