Gareth currently holds the positions of Deputy Pro-Vice Chancellor, Physical Activity, Sport, Health and Wellbeing, and Director of Strategy and Insight in the College of Engineering and School of Sport and Exercise Sciences at Swansea University, as well as adjunct Professor at the University of Western Australia.
Gareth has been involved in physical activity, fitness and health academic teaching and research for over 30 years. He specialises in physical activity measurement studies and more recently the development of novel sensor technologies to detect and stimulate changes in quantity and quality of physical activity and sedentary behaviour. Further he has designed a number of physical activity interventions in clinical and healthy populations that aimed to change behaviour and promote positive wellbeing.
During his time in Liverpool, Gareth led the research and evaluation of the Liverpool Active City Programme and chaired the Liverpool Active City Strategy group (2012-17). Liverpool Active City was the recipient of numerous awards including the Nursing Times Award for the Liveability Programme for Older People and the European Childhood Obesity Group, Louis Bonduelle award for the Sportslinx programme both in 2011.
Gareth has worked in translating research and chaired a number of national groups responsible for producing physical activity and sedentary behaviour guidance for young people. He is the Lead Export on Physical Activity of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) quality standards advisory committee for childhood obesity and chair of the PH17 Promoting physical activity in children. Gareth was the European Representative on the Canadian 24-hour movement guidelines for children expert group and currently leads the Active Healthy Kids (AHK) Wales group which is part of a 52-country AHK global alliance.
Gareth is also expert advisor on the Chief Medical Officers Physical Activity Guidance group that released the new UK physical activity Guidelines in September 2019 and an expert adviser to the CMO on physical activity during the COVID19 pandemic. After returning to Wales in 2012 he wrote the ABMU Physical Activity Strategy (2018). Gareth is currently PI on the British Academy Funded Kenyalinx Project and MRC funded BEACHES project. He also acts as Co-I on numerous projects including those funded by BHF, NIHR, and WEFO.
His academic contributions are captured in over 200 per reviewed papers, and he is particularly proud of his academic family of over 40 PhD graduates.
