Michael Djordjevic was awarded an Australian National Research Fellowship in 1984 and a Post Doctoral Fellowship from the Australian Wool Board Trust Fund in 1985. He is a Chief Investigator and Node Leader in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Integrative Legume Research (CILR).

He has initiated research to understand the lipid biosynthesis pathway in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii and the application of this research to biofuel production.