Szyf is currently a James McGill and Glaxo SmithKline-CIHR professor of Pharmacology at McGill University. Szyf's research has focused on understanding the basic principles of the DNA methylation machinery for the last three decades. He received his Ph. D from the Hebrew University working with Aharon Razin on basic mechanisms of DNA methylation. Szyf then went on to a postdoctoral fellowship in Genetics at Harvard Medical School and was appointed to an assistant professor at McGill University in Pharmacology and Therapeutics in 1989.