Prof. Robert Burne is both Australian and British. He is an honorary professor of University of Queensland and honorary associate professor of The Australian National University. He is currently a guest professor of Southwest Petroleum University, China. Prof. Robert Burne received his bachelor degree from University College of Wales in 1966, and PhD from University of Oxford in 1969, respectively. Afterward, he moved to Jamaica to work as a lecturer in The University of the West Indies at Mona from 1969-1973. In the year 1974, he returned to University of Oxford to work as a senior research fellow. Since 1974, he went back to Australia and worked there until now.

His research is focused on microbialites, geobiology, facies analysis, coastal geoscience, turbidites and gravity flow deposits. He is one of the editorial board members of the Journal of Palaeogeography. He has published over 100 journal papers and chapters in books, with a total citation of over 2000 times and an h-index of 24.