Mark Benden

Mark Benden is the director of the Center for Worker Health and professor and head of the Environmental and Occupational Health Department in the School of Public Health. He is also a faculty fellow with four other health-based centers as well as a professor in Industrial and Systems Engineering and the Multidisciplinary Engineering department. His research interests are office worker obesity, classroom ergonomics and childhood obesity, medical device development and testing, and sedentary behavior and intervention. He led and sold two faculty startups and is currently working on his third, HumanateDigital, Inc. Benden holds 26 U.S. patents with more pending, and he has licensed five products to four companies during his time at Texas A&M University. Benden’s career includes experience as an officer in the United States Army Reserve, inventor, rehabilitation engineer, ergonomics consultant, plant and corporate ergonomics engineer for Johnson & Johnson, and executive vice president for Neutral Posture. His 25-year career in occupational safety and ergonomics has produced multiple processes, tools, and devices to ease injury and illness risk. He has authored many articles, books and book chapters on ergonomics and has lectured for multiple professional groups throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, the Caribbean and Central and South America. He earned a bachelor’s in bioengineering, a master’s in industrial engineering, and a PhD in interdisciplinary engineering, all from Texas A&M University.