Civelli joined F. Hoffmann-La Roche, Basel in 1992 as vice president and developed the reverse pharmacology approach that allowed him to discover novel neuropeptides. He returned to academia as the Eric L. and Lila D. Nelson professor of neuropharmacology at the University of California, Irvine in 1996. From 2012 to 2019, he was the Chair of Department of Pharmacology at UC Irvine.
