McGaha obtained his PhD in immunology at the Ichan School of Medicine at New York University and pursued post-doctoral training at Rockefeller University. He started his own lab as an assistant professor at Temple University before moving to Georgia Regents University in 2008. McGaha joined the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre as a senior scientist in 2015. He is also an associate professor in the Department of Immunology at University of Toronto.

McGaha’s research interests involve mechanisms of immune tolerance induced by cell death and communication between innate and adaptive cells in regulatory immunity. His laboratory was one of the first to demonstrate that specialised stromal macrophages (i.e., tissue-resident) control early immunity to apoptotic cells, regulating both dendritic cell and T cell responses to apoptotic antigens, and disrupting the function of these macrophage subsets renders mice susceptible to apoptotic cell-driven autoimmune disease. Ongoing studies are characterising the cell-specific contribution to apoptotic cell regulatory immune responses, cellular stress, and immunometabolism in the context of autoimmunity and cancer.