Douglas was a Professor at Charles Darwin University, Australia, an Adjunct Professor at the University of Canberra, a Senior Research Fellow at the Bandung Resilience Development Initiative (Indonesia), and a Research Fellow at the Joint Centre for Disaster Research (New Zealand). In 2005-2006, he was the Australian delegate to the UNESCO Education for Natural Disaster Preparedness in the Asia-Pacific. He was a member of the UNISDR now UNDRR) RIA sub-committee (2012-2016) and served on the Psychosocial Advisory Committee for the Christchurch earthquake (2011-2013). In 2014 his role as a Technical Advisor on Risk Communication with the WHO helped develop the community engagement program for the Ebola response program in Sierra Leone. His research developed and tested theories of adaptive and resilient capacity in communities using all-hazards and cross-cultural approaches. Current work included developing transformative approaches to community capacity building during disaster recovery and using the visual and performing arts to support disaster recovery. Douglas is listed in the Stanford University/Elsevier BV list of the top 2% most cited researchers worldwide. In 2021 and 2022, the Australian Research Review listed Douglas as the top Australian researcher in the Emergency Management/DRR field of research. Douglas has a Scopus h-index of 47 and the corresponding h-index on Research Gate is 62. Douglas published 24 books and about 200 peer-reviewed papers and chapters with over 260 collaborators from across the world. He has served as Editor of the Australasian Journal of Disaster and Trauma Studies (Founding Editor), Disaster Prevention and Management and the International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters. He sat on several journal editorial boards, including the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, Disasters, the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction.