From 1984 to 1990 he was research assistant for the NFWO (National Fund for Scientific Research). From 1990 to 1993, he was senior research assistant for the same organization. From 1993 to 1995, he was doctor assistant at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Since 1995, he is assistant professor (docent) at the same University.
Professor Dirkx currently teaches courses in the fields of Structured Digital VLSI Design, Basic Computer Architecture, Advanced Computer Architecture, Concurrent Systems, Theorethical Informatics and Compiler Construction.
In 1992, he was a visiting researcher in I.B.M. T.J.Watson research laboratory (Yorktown Heights, NY). In 1993, he was a visiting researcher in the Electrotechnical Laboratory (ETL, Tsukuba, Japan).
Prof. Dirkx is a member of IEEE and ACM. He serves regularly on the program committees of conferences in the field of parallel and distributed computing. He is the belgian representative in IFIP TC10 and WG10.3.