Born in Philadelphia, USA, but with a personal background of growing up, studying, and working between the Marshall Islands, Japan, the United States, and Australia, his research and teaching focus is on Japanese and American postcolonial histories in Oceania, with an emphasis on transoceanic intersections of art, gender, and militarism in popular culture. 

He also appears on television programs from time to time as a commentator and gives talks on postcolonial resistance and art in Oceania. Dvorak is the founding director of project35 (projectsango), a grassroots network that aims to raise awareness about the Pacific Islands region in Japan through art and scholarly exchange. As part of this initiative, he has been collaborating with local artists and researching/helping to curate art from Oceania, especially from Micronesia and areas that have been most impacted by Japanese and American colonialism. He was a key member of the Honolulu Biennial Curatorial Advisory Board in 2017. In 2019 he also conceived, curated, and coordinated a special program at the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival entitled "AM/NESIA: Forgotten 'Archipelagos' of Oceania," undertaking a curatorial residency at the Bellas Artes Foundation in the Philippines in the same year. In conjunction with this work examining the intersections between art, identity, science, and scholarship, he was awarded a three-year grant by the Japanese government (kakenhi) to study how indigenous artists from Oceania resist and decolonize through global art channels. Based on this research, he served as the co-curator of the "Air Canoe" exhibit in the 10th Asia Pacific Triennial at the Queensland Gallery of Art in 2021-2022.