Associate Professor Ben Barry | UniSC | University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia

Associate Professor Ben Barry is an accredited exercise physiologist and registered physiotherapist with a breadth of experience across academia, clinical practice, management and government.

Clinically, he focuses on healthy ageing, linking nicely with his PhD thesis on "Resistance training and movement control in older adults". He has extensive experience teaching across the health professions. This has included coordinating degree programs and courses, leading teaching teams and discipline-wide curriculum reviews, expanding and enhancing clinical placement programs and student clinics, and innovations in online teaching of health professionals. His research interests have been in adaptations of the nervous system to exercise and ageing, and progressed to health professional education, including digital health, interprofessional education and workforce capacity.

Ben completed postdoctoral training in the Department of Integrative Physiology at the University of Colorado Boulder USA, and subsequently worked for a decade at the School of Medical Sciences, The University of New South Wales, as well as holding an honorary appointment at Neuroscience Research Australia, before returning to The University of Queensland in 2017. He has a track record of external research funding and postgraduate research supervision as well as several teaching awards. 

After twenty years as a career academic, he greatly enjoyed returning to clinical practice and learned much as a public servant focussed on aged care reform. Prior to returning to academia, Ben led a large multidisciplinary allied health team in community aged and disability care. On joining UniSC in 2026, Ben will bring these experiences back to the classroom.