Professor McCluskey became the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) in 2011.  Professor McCluskey, MD, FRCPA was previously Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research Partnerships) and Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Melbourne.

Professor McCluskey trained in Perth as a physician and pathologist.  He spent 4 years at the National Institutes of Health in the USA and on returning to Australia in 1987 he worked at Monash University until 1991 before joining Flinders University and the Australian Red Cross Blood Service. In 1997 he joined the University of Melbourne and was Associate Dean of Research in the Faculty of Medicine Dentistry and Health Sciences from 2006 until 2009 when he took up the role of Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research Partnerships).

He has an international reputation for his research in basic and clinical immunology and is recognised for his leadership in the field of HLA and the major histocompatibility complex (MHC). He is a consultant immunologist for the Australian Red Cross, the Victorian Transplantation Immunology Service and is Editor-in-Chief of the international immunogenetics journal Tissue Antigens.

Professor McCluskey has led the development of the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, involving a partnership between the University of Melbourne and Melbourne Health. He has received several distinguished awards for his research and in 2012 was elected to the fellowship of the Australian Academy of Science. He is on the Board of directors of the Bionics Institute, Walter & Eliza Hall Institute, UoM Commercial and chair of the board of Nossal Institute Ltd.