We are world-leading researchers, passionate about creating sustainable change to combat our modern epidemic of too much sitting.
Our vision is to change today’s working environment so that sitting less and moving more becomes the new norm for a happier, healthier workplace. Building on over a decade of research into what works to reduce sitting time, we are now dedicating our efforts to impact workplace policy and practice at a national and international level.
We believe that health promotion programs and workplace health and wellbeing initiatives should be accessible to all workers and workplaces. Our mission is to serve all sectors where desk-based sitting predominates. We seek to empower champions and their work teams to raise awareness, build a supportive culture and create sustainable change.
BeUpstanding was created and is led by researchers at The University of Queensland, Australia.
A/Prof Genevieve Healy
A/Prof Genevieve Healy is the Principal Investigator. She is a world-leading expert in sedentary behaviour. Her work has been seminal to understanding the risks of prolonged sitting and she is a strong advocate for dynamic workspaces to positively impact health, wellbeing, and work outcomes.
Dr Ana Goode
Dr Ana Goode is the Program Translation Leader. She is an expert in the translation and dissemination of evidence-based health-behaviour change and public health programs into practice. She is passionate about helping people and organisations adopt, deliver, evaluate and sustain programs to improve health and wellbeing.
Dr Elisabeth Winkler
Dr Elisabeth Winkler is the Data Analyst. She has extensive experience in evaluating behaviour change programs, including those with a focus on prolonged sitting and workplace health and wellbeing.
Lisa Ulyate
Lisa is a project manager and expert health coach. With a Masters’ degree in Nutrition and Dietetics, she has over 8 years’ experience in health behaviour change coaching. Lisa is passionate about supporting individuals to implement simple and sustainable changes to improve health.
Jodie Jetann
Jodie is a project manager and expert health coach. Her qualifications include a Bachelor of Nursing and a Masters’ degree in Public Health. Jodie has wide expertise in public health and clinical research, policy and practice with the intention of improving the health of communities.
Dr Samantha Stephens
Dr Samantha Stephens is a project manager and recent PhD graduate in the field of sedentary behaviour. She is an expert in understanding how behaviour change strategies can be used and targeted to achieve effective outcomes in the workplace setting.
Steve Goodwin
Steve Goodwin is a software developer with broad experience base in software and systems design, development, implementation and installation. Steve enjoys working on projects that deal with psychology, mental and physical health and has contributed his software expertise to several over the years.
Matthew Frith
Matt is the founder and Managing Director of kin8, a consultancy that delivers innovation and change management projects for private and public sector clients. kin8 works with the BeUpstanding team to design and implement communications strategies and to establish approaches for expanding impact creation and the long term sustainability of the BeUpstanding program.
Sarah Hyne
Sarah is a designer and user researcher who helps bring to life good ideas for good people. She has a background in visual communication, UX design, anthropology and behavioural science and has worked with start ups, public and private sector organisations and social enterprises.
None of this would be possible without our academic contributors Professor David Dunstan, Professor Elizabeth Eakin, Professor Anthony LaMontagne, Professor Neville Owen, Professor Marj Moodie, Professor Leon Straker, Adjunct Professor Trevor Shilton, and Associate Professor Nicholas Gilson.
BeUpstanding is currently being evaluated as part of a national implementation trial funded through the NHMRC, being conducted in partnership with SafeWork Australia, Comcare, Workplace Health and Safety Queensland, VicHealth and Healthier Workplace WA/Cancer Council WA.
For more information about the BeUpstanding Implementation trial, visit NHMRC and ANZCTR.
Below are seminal research publications, guidelines and reports from our work, aimed at impacting policy and practice at a national and international level.
UQ
research article
Sitting less has great benefits for your workers’ and your organisation’s health.
Be the one to start the change in your workplace.
The BeUpstanding Champion Toolkit is brought to you by researchers at the School of Public Health, The University of Queensland.
For additional support services related to BeUpstanding, contact the team at The University of Queensland at beupstanding@uq.edu.au.