Somerville published more than 250 research papers in biochemistry and cell and molecular biology. His work was largely focused on elucidating the mechanisms by which the major storage and structural components of plants and bacteria were synthesized, and, in recent years, he also studied how such components could be depolymerized for use as feedstocks and synthons for production of fuels and chemicals. He was an early advocate for the use of Arabidopsis as a model organism and was an organizer of the international collaboration that sequenced the Arabidopsis genome. He and Elliot Meyerowitz (Caltech) shared the Balzan Prize for their role in establishing Arabidopsis as one of the most widely used model organisms. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society of London. Somerville was the recipient of many other awards and has been awarded six honorary doctorates. He now works in a philanthropy that supports basic and applied scientific research.