Professor Billie Bonevski is a health behaviour scientist and Professor of Public Health at Flinders University, Adelaide. Professor Bonevski was appointed to this role in 2021. 

Billie has been Chief Investigator (CI) on over $30M of funding consisting of $19M in Category 1 grants, $6M in Category 2-4 grants and $3.7M in University research centre and commissioned research funding. She is CI on 19 NHMRC grants, CIA on 9 of those, representing continuous NHMRC funding over the last 10 years. In 2020 she was part of an international consortia awarded a NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence for Achieving Tobacco Endgame (CIB and Deputy Director, 2020-2025).

Billie Bonevski’s research is highly translational. Her research for the landmark Cancer Council NSW Supportive Care Needs Project has been cited over 900 times and led to the introduction of routine distress screening in oncology treatment centres, financial assistance for carers and improved chemotherapy waiting rooms. The Supportive Care Needs survey that Billie developed and validated has been translated into 11 languages for use globally. More recently, Billie led the research program accompanying the Cancer Council’s Tackling Tobacco Program to reduce smoking among socioeconomically disadvantaged groups, the biggest cancer prevention investment made by the Cancer Council NSW in its history. The research led to implementation of Tackling Tobacco Program in >200 community social services in NSW, and now in Victoria, WA and Queensland, reaching >28,000 service clients (featured in 2017/18 CCNSW Annual Report). Her systematic review led to a Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (USA) recommendation for online smoking cessation programs, and her research into reactions of high-risk groups to plain cigarette packs was cited in UK and German parliamentary bids for plain packaging.