Professor Neville Owen
Neville is a NHMRC Senior Principal Research Fellow and Distinguished Professor of Health Sciences at Swinburne University. He has honorary appointments as an Adjunct Professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Queensland, an Honorary Professorial Fellow in the School of Population and Global Health at the University of Melbourne and an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Medicine at Monash University. Prior to his most recent move to Melbourne, he was Foundation Professor of Human Movement Science and Head of the School of Human Movement at Deakin University (1995–99) and Director of the Cancer Prevention Research Centre at the University of Queensland (2002–11).
His research relates to the primary prevention of diabetes, heart disease and cancer, through identifying the health consequences and environmental determinants of physical inactivity and sedentary behaviour — too little exercise and too much sitting. This involves laboratory-based experimental work, large-scale prospective observational studies and real-world intervention trials. He has published some 500 peer-reviewed papers and chapters.
Neville has been supported continuously by grants from the NHMRC since 1992. He completed his second five-year Program Grant (Sitting less and moving more: population health research to understand and influence sedentary behaviour) and now leads a NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence (Sitting time and chronic disease prevention — measurement, mechanisms and interventions).
Sedentary Behavior and Health: concepts, assessments and interventions