Elix spent a post doctoral year in 1966 at Cambridge, returning to Australia in 1967 to a lectureship in chemistry at the
ANU. and ultimately leading to work on the evolution, taxonomy and phylogeny of lichens. For his work on lichens, Elix was awarded the
Acharius Medal in 2004 and the
Nancy T Burbidge Medal in 2015. He was honoured in 1997, when lichenologist
Helge Thorsten Lumbsch published
Elixiaceae which is a
family of
fungi in the order
Umbilicariales. It contains two genera,
Meridianelia, and the
type genus,
Elixia, which is named after John Alan Elix. He was also honoured again in 2004, with
Melanelixia, which is a
genus of
foliose lichens in the family
Parmeliaceae, and in 2016 with
Astrothelium elixii, a rare
bark-dwelling Bolivian lichen. ==Selected publications==