Mark has broad experience in maritime archaeology, historical archaeology, museums and cultural heritage studies in a career that spans nearly forty  years. He is currently an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Archaeology at Flinders University. Mark was the convenor of the Maritime Archaeology Program (MAP) at Flinders University for 14 years (1997-2010). Before that he was curator of maritime archaeology at the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney (1987-1993) and State Maritime Archaeologist for the Victoria Archaeological Survey in Victoria.

For ten years (2008-2018) I was a member of a research team that was conducting research at the Bach Dang archaeological site in Vietnam where Kublai Khan's invasion fleet was defeated and largely destroyed in 1288AD. This research started as an international collaborative project involving the Institute of Nautical Archaeology (the leading not-for-profit research institute in the field in the world) at Texas A&M University and the Maritime Archaeology Program (MAP) at Flinders University working in cooperation with researchers from the Institute of Archaeology at the Vietnamese Academy of Social Sciences and the Vietnam Maritime Archaeology Project (VMAP).For four years (2011-2014) I was one of the three Chief Investigators for a large ARC Linkage project (LP110200184): The Australian Historic Shipwreck Protection Project: in situ preservation and reburial of a colonial trader - Clarence (1850). This project, co-ordinated through ANU, received $500, 000 funding from the ARC and the highest possible endorsement under the Cooperative National Heritage Agenda (the CNHA) and the ten Industry partners include the Commonwealth Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities as well as the Commonwealth Historic Shipwreck Delegates from all States, the Northern Territory and Norfolk Island. The site chosen for conducting this focused reburial study was the Australian built trading vessel Clarence (Victorian Heritage register S127) located in Port Phillip, Victoria.