Owen Atkin
Director
Agrifood Innovation Institute
Professor Owen Atkin is the Director of the Agrifood Innovation Institute (AFII). AFII connects The Australian National University (ANU) researchers with industry and entrepreneurs to accelerate transformative innovation for a more a sustainable agrifood sector.
Alongside this role, Owen is also a Professor of Plant Science in the Research School of Biology at ANU. A major focus of his research is assessing the impact of
environmental gradients on plant physiological processes, particularly respiration.
Owen obtained his BSc (Hons) in 1987 (ANU) and his PhD in 1993 (Toronto). From 1993-1995 he held an EU Post Doctoral Fellowship (Utrecht), followed by an ARC Post Doctoral Fellowship at ANU from 1996-1999. He moved to the UK to take up a faculty position in the Biology Department at the University of York (1999-2008). He then returned to ANU in 2008 and was awarded an ARC Future Fellowship in 2009. In 2019, he was appointed as a Vice Chancellor’s Entrepreneurial Professor. He is widely published and has been an Editor for one of the world’s leading plant science journals, New Phytologist, since 2007.