Rate My Professor Alex Macmillan

Alex Macmillan is Professor of Environmental Health in the Department of Public Health, Dunedin School of Medicine, Division of Health Sciences at the University of Otago. She trained in medicine and is a public health physician with qualifications MB ChB, MPH(Hons), PhD, and FNZCPHM (Fellow of the New Zealand College of Public Health Medicine). Her career at the University of Otago has progressed to full professorship, marked by her Inaugural Professorial Lecture in August 2025 titled “Towards healthy and just action on climate change: ‘Barely faster than the speed of a bicycle’”. She holds an honorary senior research associate position at the Bartlett School of Graduate Studies, University College London. In 2019, she was awarded the Excellence in Public Health Impact award by the Department of Preventive and Social Medicine.

Macmillan's research focuses on the links between urban environments, sustainability, and health. Key areas include transport and health, urban planning and health, housing policies, food systems, sustainability and health, climate change and human health, resource management and human health, local government and health, and linkages between health, equity, and environmental sustainability. She conducts community-based epidemiological research and uses participatory system dynamics modelling to translate evidence into policy, bringing together policy, community, and academic knowledge to model future policy options. Her publications include Jacob, A. E., Drew, J., Macmillan, A., & Cleghorn, C. (2026). Updating greenhouse gas emission estimates in the New Zealand-specific dietary life cycle-assessment (LCA) database. Environmental Research Communications, 8(1), 014502; Smith, M., van der Werf, B., Witten, K., O'Reilly, N., Hosking, J., Macmillan, A., Mackie, H., & Raerino, K. (2025). Impacts of a community-wide infrastructural intervention on children's active school travel: A controlled before-after study. Journal of Transport & Health, 44, 102148; Pagani, A., Walker, A., Macmillan, A., Nita, A., Davies, M., & Zimmermann, N. (2025). Systemic issues in the English social housing sector: mapping interconnected challenges faced by London-based housing associations. Housing Studies; Macmillan, A., Wright, S., Cleghorn, C. (2025). SDG2 Zero Hunger and the need to re-think food production in Aotearoa: viewpoint; Shaw, C., Gage, R., Miller, A., Cullerton, K., & Macmillan, A. (2026). Commercial influences on healthy transport: Interest group engagement with transport ministers in Aotearoa/New Zealand 2017-2022. Health Promotion Journal of Australia, 37, e70140. Her research has over 3,300 citations on ResearchGate.