From 2008 to 2014, Goodwin was an EPSRC Career Acceleration Fellow and an associate professor in the department of chemistry at University of Oxford. He became a professor of materials chemistry at University of Oxford in 2014 and a university research professor in 2018. He researches inorganic and solid-state chemistry. Goodwin's research has advanced the theoretical and applied studies of disorder and flexibility in materials. His laboratory applied diffraction and modelling techniques to study disordered materials and create new materials.