Dordick joined the Rensselaer faculty as the chair of the Department of Chemical Engineering in 1998 and is also the Howard P. Isermann Professor. He spent nine years at the University of Iowa. He joined their staff in 1987 as a member of the Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering and was promoted to associate professor in 1991 and to full professor in 1994. He served as department chair from 1995 to 1998. He also served as associate director of the Center for Biocatalysis and Bioprocessing at the University of Iowa and held a joint position in the university's Department of Medicinal and Natural Products Chemistry in the College of Pharmacy.

Dordick is the associate editor for Biotechnology and Bioengineering (1996 to present), and is a member of the editorial boards for several publications, including Enzyme and Microbial Technology (1993 to present); the Journal of Industrial Microbiology (1996 to 2000); the Journal of Environmental Polymer Degradation (1996 to present); Metabolic Engineering (2000 to present); and Biocatalysis and Biotransformations (1996 to present). He was the editor, patents and literature section, for applied Biochemistry and Biotechnology (1990 to 1993), and the associate editor, Biocatalysis and Biotransformations (1992 to 1995).

Dordick served as chairman of the division of biochemical technology of the ACS in 1992, and presently he serves on the scientific advisory boards for several biotechnology companies. He is a co-founder of EnzyMed, Inc., a pharmaceutical and agrochemical company; has published over 145 papers; and holds 21 patents.

Dordick was awarded the American Chemical Society Iowa Section Award in 1998. He was elected a fellow for the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering in 1996. In 1992, he was the chair of the division of biochemical technology for the American Chemical Society (ACS) and in 1991 was a delegate to the U.S.-Korea Joint Symposium on Bioprocess Technology in Seoul. He won the National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award in 1989, the Faculty Scholar Award from the University of Iowa in 1989 and received a NASA Technical Brief Citation in 1989. He was the Old Gold Summer Fellowship winner for the University of Iowa in 1988.

Overall, professor Dordick's research activities include biocatalysis in nonaqueous media, molecular bioprocessing, biocatalytic materials and coatings, and combinatorial biocatalysis. His work has had significant impact in the areas of biomedical engineering, biomaterials, biochemical engineering, biocatalysis, and biotechnology.

Dordick's group is looking at ways to combine biomolecules such as proteins, peptides, and nucleic acid into nanomaterial networks. The group uses biocatalysis and biorecognition, for example, to create nanotube-protein structures, which could be used as nanometer-sized reactors for chemical/biological reactions. Dordick and his team are also working to use self-assembly techniques to create new organic-inorganic assemblies approaching biological complexity in architecture and function. The knowledge gained by this research group is expected to be important in such applications as tissue engineering, catalyst arrays, heavy metal sensors, and 3D nanofabrication strategies for electronic, magnetic, and photonic materials.