Carolissen is also the Chair of the Council of the University of the Witwatersrand.
He holds a Master’s degree in Solid State Physics and a PhD Solid State Physics from the University of the Western Cape.
He also obtained an Honours degree in Business Administration and an MBA University of Stellenbosch.
Carolissen has previously served as an academic - as a researcher at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) as a senior lecturer in Physics at the University of the Western Cape, and as a Visiting Fellow at the universities of Pennsylvania and Missouri in the US and the University of Gent in Belgium.