Prof Ebers graduated from the University of Toronto and did his postgraduate work at MCGill, Cornell University, and the Rockefeller University. He was director of the Multiple Sclerosis Clinic, University Hospital at the University of Western Ontario from 1980 until 1999 when he moved to Oxford University to take up the post of Action Research Professor of Neurology. He is an active clinician but his research interests have been primarily in the area of neurological genetics and MS.