Prof Deirdre Hurley

Dr Deirdre Hurley-Osing is an Associate Professor in the UCD School of Public Health, Physiotherapy and Sports Science. She holds BScPhysiotherapy (UCD), MAppScManipTher (University of South Australia) and PhD (University of Ulster) degrees. She is Director of the BPlus Physiotherapy Programme at UCD, an international study abroad programme with University of Applied Sciences, Hochschule Osnabruck, Germany and the UCD representative on the Health Research Board funded inter-institutional Structured Population and Health Services Research Education (SPHeRE) programe steering committee. As Dean [2009-2012] she led the introduction of the first Graduate Entry MScPhysiotherapy Pre-registration programme in Ireland, as well as the first Physiotherapy Programmes Fitness to Practise statement. Her current research interests include self-management and physical activity interventions for chronic low back pain and osteoarthritis, the application of behaviour change theory to complex interventions, the design and evaluation of strategies to enhance implementation of evidence into physiotherapy practice and E-learning approaches to support knowledge translation for healthcare practitioners. She has obtained peer-reviewed research grant funding of circa Euro2.4M, including significant funding from the Health Research Board, and INTERREG-ESTIIC, Irish Research Council for Science, Engineering and Technology (IRCSET), Department of Health and Children Ireland, and UCD. She has published widely, disseminated her research extensively and received several international research presentation awards.