Centre Affiliate

Christine Cowie is an environmental epidemiologist and Senior Research Fellow with the UNSW South West Sydney Clinical School and the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research (WIMR). She has a broad environmental health background having worked in state and local government in environmental health policy and practice positions, and more recently in academia and research. Her major research focus is in quantifying the health effects of air pollution exposures and developing appropriate tools for exposure measurement. She has also led air pollution monitoring campaigns for individual projects including the Lane Cove tunnel Health Study and the Air Pollution, Mortality and Morbidity in Australian Adults (APMMA) Study, as well as for smaller seed funding grants. She has a special interest in understating the effects of urban exposures particularly traffic related air pollution, and more recently, woodsmoke pollution, un under-recognised but highly significant urban source of pollution. Additional research interests include the effects of indoor emissions from gas appliances, and investigating the potential for health impacts associated with energy transitions.

Penny Jones holds dual positions as a Senior Research Fellow in Environmental Health at the Menzies Institute for Medical Research and a Senior Lecturer in Biological Sciences in the School of Natural Sciences. She has a multi-sectoral and multi-disciplinary background, combining government experience in environmental policy with research spanning fire ecology, palaeoecology, archaeology, aerobiology and most recently, environmental health. Currently, her core research focus is the intersection of the atmospheric environment and human health, particularly in terms of pollen, poor air quality and the aerial microbiome, and she has played a lead role in the AirRater smartphone application. She is also passionate about teaching, and developed and now coordinates the unit KPZ104 Living with Fire.

Nigel Goodman is a Research Fellow in Air Quality and Health based in the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health at ANU. Nigel is an experienced air quality scientist with expertise in reducing human exposure to the sources of indoor and outdoor air pollution. He is member of the Climate and Health Group at ANU, and the Healthy Environments and Lives (HEAL) National Research Network, where he helps to address the impacts of air pollution associated with climate and environmental change on human health.

Kathy Heathcote is an experienced academic with a demonstrated history of working in NSW and QLD health services and in University sectors. Her skills lie in the fields of epidemiology, population health, evidence-based practice (EBP) and research design. Her research interests lie in addressing health disparities and preventable factors underlying rural and urban variations in health, health care and health outcomes.

Annabelle (Belle) Workman completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Melbourne in 2008, majoring in Politics and Chinese. Belle worked for the National Health and Medical Research Council for five years in clinical practice guidelines and research translation before completing her PhD at the University of Melbourne in 2019. Belle's research investigated the role of health co-benefits in the development of climate change mitigation policies. She developed case studies for Australia, the European Union, China and the United States of America, identifying barriers and opportunities to enhance the political traction of health in mitigation policy development. Belle completed a Research Fellowship at the University of Tasmania's Menzies Institute for Medical Research, evaluating the environmental health smartphone app, AirRater. She has worked with the University of Tasmania's sustainability team and most recently worked as a knowledge broker at the Centre for Air pollution, energy and health Research (CAR). She returned to the University of Melbourne in October 2021 as a Research Fellow with Melbourne Climate Futures.