Distinguished Professor Chris Berndt joined Swinburne in early 2008 as the founding Professor of Surface Science and Interface Engineering. This followed his role as founding Professor of Surface and Interface Engineering at James Cook University, a tenured professor position at Stony Brook University (where he remains Adjunct Professor) and appointments at the NASA-Lewis Research Center in Cleveland as a Fellow of the Institute for Aerospace Propulsion and Power where he worked on thermal barrier coatings.

Professor Berndt's professional responsibilities gravitate around the Thermal Spray Society of the ASM of which he has been a member since 1991. He was appointed as the Vice President of this society in 2000 and President in 2002. He was the Proceedings Editor for the Thermal Spray Conferences held in the USA from 1992-2003. He was inducted into the Thermal Spray Hall of Fame in 2007 and is editor/co-editor of 10 conference proceedings on thermal spray.

Professor Berndt is the Founding Editor, and now Editor Emeritus, for the Journal of Thermal Spray Technology. He is a member of some 13 professional societies in the materials, mechanical, manufacturing and biomedical fields and has more than 550 publications in the field of materials science and engineering. He is also a Fellow of the Australian Institution of Engineers, a Fellow of ASM International, a Fellow of The Institution of Metallurgists (UK), and of ASME, ACS and ACerS. He is also a Chartered Engineer (UK), a Professional Engineer (Australia), and a Member of the College of Bioengineers (Australia).