Board of Directors

PROFESSOR ALAN DONNELLY

PROFESSOR ALAN DONNELLY

PRESIDENT

Department of Physical Education and Sports Sciences, University of Limerick, Ireland

Professor Donnelly teaches the undergraduate programmes of Sport and Exercise Science, Physiotherapy, and taught postgraduate programmes in Speech and Language Therapy and Occupational Therapy.

Dr. Karin Allor Pfeiffer

Dr. Karin Allor Pfeiffer

PRESIDENT-ELECT, TREASURER

Department of Kinesiology, Michigan State University, USA

Dr. Karin Pfeiffer is a Professor in the Department of Kinesiology and faculty in the Center for Physical Activity and Health at Michigan State University (MSU). Dr. Pfeiffer’s main areas of expertise are in measurement of physical activity and interventions to increase physical activity. Most of her work in both areas involves pediatric populations.

Dr. Bronwyn K. Clark

Dr. Bronwyn K. Clark

PAST PRESIDENT

School of Public Health, The University of Queensland, Australia

Dr. Bronwyn Clark is a post-doctoral research fellow in the Cancer Prevention Research Centre at the School of Population Health based at Herston. She was awarded her PhD on the topic of measurement of adults’ sedentary behaviour in May 2012. Since that time she has worked as a part-time research fellow focussing on measures of sedentary behaviour and the quality of these measures for health behaviour and epidemiological studies.

Dr. Martina Mancini

Dr. Martina Mancini

SECRETARY

Oregon Health & Science University, Department of Neurology and Balance Disorders Laboratory

Martina Mancini is Assistant Professor at Oregon Health & Science University, Department of Neurology, and co-director of the Balance Disorders Laboratory. She is a bioengineer focusing on using technologies to characterize movement and brain activity to determine the role of the central nervous system in integrating sensory information in individuals with movement or cognitive impairments. 

Professor Hans Bussmann

Professor Hans Bussmann

BOARD MEMBER

Dept. of Rehabilitation Medicine, Erasmus MC – University Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Hans Bussmann is Associate Professor at Erasmus MC. He is responsible for the research within the research line MoveFit, aiming at understanding and optimizing physical behaviour and fitness in people with chronic conditions.

Dr. Alex Clarke-Cornwell

Dr. Alex Clarke-Cornwell

BOARD MEMBER

School of Health & Society, The University of Salford, UK

Alex is Reader in Public Health Epidemiology, Co-Programme Leader MSc Public Health, and Co-Chair ROME Internal Review Panel / School of Health and Society at the University of Salford, Manchester. She has been involved in a range of research projects that have used her experience of epidemiology and statistics. Her current research projects focus on the associations between sedentary behaviour and health-related outcomes in the workplace, and the measurement of physical behaviours in the free-living environment.

Professor Jorunn Helbostad

Professor Jorunn Helbostad

BOARD MEMBER

Department of Neuromedicine and Movement Science, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway

Jorunn L Helbostad is physiotherapist by background and holds a professor position at the Department of Neuroscience at the Faculty of Medicine at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). She is leading the cross disciplinary research network, Human Motor Control, as part of NTNUs thematic area of priority Medical Technology. Her research focuses on movement disorders, gait and balance disorders, and falls in older persons, as well as on assessment of gait and physical activity by use of body worn sensors.

Professor Jeff Hausdorff

Professor Jeff Hausdorff

BOARD MEMBER

Movement Disorders Unit at the Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical Center (TASMC), Israel

For the past twenty years, Dr. Hausdorff has studied neurodynamics and the application of statistical physics to the study of gait, heart rate dynamics, and brain function, with a special focus on gait variability, “fractal” physiology, and falls in older adults and patients with neurodegenerative disease such as Parkinson’s disease.

Dr. Dinesh John

Dr. Dinesh John

BOARD MEMBER

Northeastern University, USA

Dr. Dinesh John is an Associate Professor at Northeastern University and his research involves the application of wearable sensors to measure and modify physical behavior. A degree in exercise physiology combined with an in-depth understanding of sensor function, sensor signal response to human movement and physiology, and signal processing, places him uniquely at the intersection of technology and lifestyle disease prevention. This has enabled him to pursue novel applications of technology in health through collaborative work with scientists from diverse fields such as engineering computer science, behavior change psychology, and public health. 

Dr. Marco Giurgiu

Dr. Marco Giurgiu

BOARD MEMBER

Department of Sport and Sport Science, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany

Dr. Marco Giurgiu is a post-doctoral researcher at the Department of Sport and Sport Science, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). His research areas are examining associations between device-based measured physical behaviour and momentary psychological outcomes by using innovative data collection approaches in real-time (e.g., via smartphone diaries) and validating wearables for the assessment of 24-hour physical behaviour.

DR. JOANNE MCVEIGH

DR. JOANNE MCVEIGH

BOARD MEMBER

Associate Professor, Curtin University

Jo McVeigh is an associate professor at Curtin University and conducts high-impact, consequential research focusing on measuring and analysing free-living physical activity and sedentary behaviour in children and adults and its relationship to health and chronic disease. Jo’s expertise and collaborative approach have led to productive partnerships with national and international researchers. She has a strong network of collaborators and has published extensively.

DR. KIM MEREDITH-JONES

DR. KIM MEREDITH-JONES

BOARD MEMBER

Director, Bone and Body Composition Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Otago

Dr. Kim Meredith-Jones is the Director of the Bone and Body Composition Unit in the Department of Medicine at the University of Otago. Dr. Meredith-Jones is also involved with several large epidemiological studies using accelerometer-based devices in the assessment of physical activity and sleep in a range of populations. She is particularly interested in the role of actigraphy in sleep and physical activity in paediatric populations.

Dr. Tom Stewart

Dr. Tom Stewart

BOARD MEMBER

Human Potential Centre, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand

Dr Stewart is a Senior Research Fellow and biostatistics advisor at the Human Potential Centre, located at Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand. His research is broadly based in public health, with a focus on physical activity epidemiology, understanding the environmental determinants of health, and finding preventative solutions for reducing the prevalence of obesity and other chronic diseases. His recent interests include combining big data and machine learning to tackle a range of public health research challenges.

Dr. Åsa Tornberg

Dr. Åsa Tornberg

BOARD MEMBER

Department of Health Sciences, Lund University, Sweden

Åsa (Birgitta) Tornberg has a PhD in clinical physiology from Lund University. Her research is about how physical activity can be adapted to different target groups to increase health and wellbeing. Åsa is a senior lecturer and an associate professor, active in research and teaching at Lund University at the Department of Health Sciences.

Dr. David R. Bassett, Jr.

Dr. David R. Bassett, Jr.

ADVISORY BOARD MEMBER

Professor and Interim Department Head, Exercise Physiology, University of Tennessee Knoxville, USA

David Bassett’s main research interest is the measurement of physical activity and energy expenditure in humans, especially with objective methods. He and his colleagues have studied the validity and reliability of pedometers, accelerometers, and heart rate monitors, and have developed new methods to measure physical activity in free-living people. Bassett has used pedometers to measure walking in various populations. Bassett has collaborated with researchers in the transportation policy and planning field to publish a study on walking, cycling, and obesity rates in fifteen countries on three continents.  They reported that Europeans walked and cycled more than North Americans and Australians, and that levels of active transportation were inversely related to obesity rates in these countries. Currently, he and his colleagues are studying relationships between physical activity and obesity using state-level data within the US. 

Professor Malcolm Granat

Professor Malcolm Granat

ADVISORY BOARD MEMBER

School of Health Sciences, University of Salford, Manchester, UK

Malcolm Granat is a Professor of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Salford. He is engaged in research looking at the quantification of free-living physical behaviours in a range of populations and conditions.

Dr. Richard (Rick) Troiano

Dr. Richard (Rick) Troiano

ADVISORY BOARD MEMBER

Epidemiology and Genomics Research Program, National Cancer Institute, USA

Dr. Richard (Rick) Troiano is a Program Director in the Risk Factor Assessment Branch of the Epidemiology and Genomics Research Program in NCI’s Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences (DCCPS). Dr. Troiano promotes the validation and use of accelerometer-based devices in the assessment of physical activity in research and population surveillance. He is interested in promoting improved understanding of the information obtained from devices and self-reports and the analytic implications of different data sources.