Zulf obtained a first degree in Chemistry from University of Greenwich (Thames Polytechnic) in 1986 and a PhD in instrumentation and analytical science from the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) in 1989 under the supervision of Prof. Fred Alder. He was a research fellow with Prof. Phil Bartlett (FRS) in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Warwick prior to joining as an academic in the Department of Pharmacy at the University of Brighton in 1990 and subsequently at Teesside University in 1996.

Zulf has research interests across the science and engineering interface with a focus towards biomedical engineering. His work has included the development of microfluidic devices for point-of-care diagnostic and for complex chemical and biological processing on a chip. Particular interests includes: electrochemical and optical sensing, microfluidics; bionanotechnology; microfabrication and soft computing for primarily pattern recognition. Zulf is an Associate Editor for Frontiers in Lab on a chip and on the Editorial Board for the Micromachines journal. He has also been on the International Program Committee for MEDICON a conference of the International Federation of Medical and Biological Engineering (IFMBE) as well as an international panel member for the Higher Education Academy (HEA) of Ireland. 

Zulf has coordinated a number of EU projects including FP6 DVT-IMP developing a point-of-care device for Deep Vein Thrombosis, MAPTech for development for Micro-Analytical Platform Technology and FP7 InFuLoC for development of an integrated and Functional Lab-on-chip. He was also involved in the FP7 Diginova project developing a roadmap for digital fabrication. Most recently, he led the Teesside University activity in the Horizon 2020 GateOne project on smart system integration for SMEs as well as a number of InnovateUK projects.

Zulf is director of Anasyst which a spin-out company from Teesside University. Anasyst is focussed on commercialising Cavity Enhanced Absorption Spectrometry for liquid based sensing, optical ammonia sensing and microfluidics based point-of-care diagnostics. www.anasyst.com