Professor Marie Murphy (FACSM, FBASES, FHEA)

Director of the Physical Activity for Health Research Centre

  • Physical Activity for Health Research Centre

Contact details

Address

Street

Moray House School of Education and Sport
Holyrood Campus
PAHRC
St Leonard’s Land, 2.27

City
Post code

Background

Marie graduated from Ulster with a BA Hons Sport & Leisure and PGCE in Physical Education and was awarded an MSc in Sports Science and a PhD in Exercise Physiology from Loughborough University. She is a fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), the British Association of Sport & Exercise Sciences (BASES) and the Higher Education Academy is a chairs the WHO Europe Health Enhancing Physical Activity Steering Committee (HEPA Europe). She is a former member of the Board of the International Society of Physical Activity and Health (ISPAH). She was a member of sub-panel 26 Sport and Exercise Sciences, Leisure and Tourism for the Research Excellence Framework 2014 and Chair of the sub-panel for REF2021. Marie’s research focuses on the effect of physical activity and exercise, in particular walking, on health and uses multidisciplinary approach which includes outcome measures ranging from the behavioural to the biochemical. Marie’s work has contributed to the evidence base underlying the current physical activity guidelines in the US, UK and Ireland and she was a co-author of the 2011 and 2019 guidelines produced by the four Chief Medical Officers. She is a member of the CMOs expert advisory group on physical activity and leading the preparation of the new UK Physical Activity Guidelines for adult.  Marie has over 140 peer-reviewed publications and is PI on a number of funded research projects including the Cross-border Healthcare Intervention Trials (CHITIN) funded Walking In ScHools (WISH) trial.  

Marie holds a joint appointment as Professor of Exercise and Health (0.2 FTE) at Ulster University.

Qualifications

BSc (Hons) Sport & Leisure

PGCE Physical Education

MSc Sport Science

PhD Exercise Physiology