Deirdre Murray MB, BAO, BCh, FRCPI, PhD

Prof Deirdre Murray graduated from UCC in 1995 and trained in Paediatrics in Dublin, before specializing in Paediatric Intensive Care in leading International Paediatric Hospitals: the Royal Bristol Children’s Hospital and the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne, Australia. She returned to Ireland to pursue a dedicated research post and completed her first Ph.D. in the Department of Paediatrics, UCC in June 2008. This thesis focussed on early continuous EEG in neonatal brain injury and resulted in a number of important peer-reviewed publications in the highest impact Paediatric journal Pediatrics. She took up her post as Senior Lecturer in the Department of Paediatrics and Child Health in 2008 and has developed her research interest into early brain injury and neurodevelopmental outcomes since that time. Her aim is to improve long-term neurological outcomes through improved detection, prediction, and early intervention following neonatal brain injury.

Prof Murray is the Principal investigator of the Cork BASELINE Birth Cohort Study and through this study, funded by the National Children’s Research Centre has established a large extremely well-phenotyped birth cohort with the first neonatal biobank in Ireland. In 2012 she was the first Irish Paediatrician to be awarded the prestigious HRB Clinician Scientist Award to develop her research in the field of novel biomarkers in Hypoxic-Ischaemic Encephalopathy through the BiHiVE study. In 2013 she became one of 9 Principal Investigators in the Irish Centre for Fetal and Neonatal Translational Research (INFANT center). In 2018 she was promoted to Prof (Scale 2) in the Dept of Paediatrics and Child Health and took up the role of Head of Department. In 2019 she became the Clinical Lead for Paediatrics in Cork University Hospital.