Owain is a cultural geographer and became the first Professor of Environmental Humanities in the UK in 2014 at Bath Spa University, and was deputy director of the Research Centre for the Environmental Humanities, 2016 - 2019. He has published over 80 scholarly articles on various aspects of nature-society relations, many focusing particularly on tidal cultures and tree cultures. He has co-authored/edited five books: Art and Creativity in an Era of Ecocide (2023); Visual Culture in the Northern British Archipelago: Imagining Islands (2018); Participatory Research in More-Than-Human Worlds (2017); Geography and Memory: Identity, Place and Becoming (2012); and Tree Cultures: Places of Trees (2002). He led a £1.5 million Arts and Humanities Research Council Connected Communities project with eight UK universities, community partners and artists in four UK case study areas (2014 – 2017). This project sought to creatively explore and transform connections within and between communities, and communities and nature, in relation to water issues. He has supervised four Environmental Humanities PhDs with art practice and conducted various creative/academic collaborations with artists