Ken graduated from the University of Melbourne with a Bachelor of Veterinary Science, and later earned a Master of Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a PhD from Ohio State University in 1990. He was an academic in the College of Veterinary Medicine at Ohio State University from 1990 to 2007, rising to professor.

At the University of Melbourne he led the formation of the joint Faculty of Veterinary and Agricultural Sciences, directing the review and renewal of the undergraduate teaching programs in that faculty, and was responsible for the introduction of the Doctor of Veterinary Medicine program, which the university began teaching in 2011.

He has extensive experience teaching undergraduate and graduate students, and is internationally recognised as a scholar of veterinary internal medicine and exercise physiology. Ken's extensive publications include co-authorship of the 9th, 10th and 11th editions of Veterinary Medicine, the most cited veterinary text book, and lead editor of the 1st and 2nd editions of Equine Sports Medicine and Surgery. He is the co-editor-in-chief of the Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine, and a member of the Zoological Parks and Gardens Board of Victoria.

Ken is leading an extensive and exhaustive strategic planning process for Trinity College, including consideration of the roles of each of the Pathways School, Residential College and Theological School in achieving Trinity’s strategic purpose 'to be a vibrant, diverse community inspiring and enabling students of exceptional promise to imagine and achieve a better world'.