Shemane Murtagh

Shemane graduated with a First Class Honours in Exercise Science from the University of Brighton in 2006. Shemane was then successfully awarded a studentship to study at University of Stirling and gained an MSc in Sports Management in 2009. Shemane then went on to complete a PhD at the University of Strathclyde in 2012. Her doctoral research focused on understanding the psychological antecedents of children’s’ physical activity patterns. A particular focus was to consider the interplay between automatic processes, such a habits, with intentional and conscious thought patterns when predicting behaviour. In these roles Shemane developed strong methodological skills, particularly in quantitative methods and statistics. Additionally, she gained experience of project management, teaching/mentoring students, and working with large multidisciplinary teams.

Following her doctoral research, Shemane went on to work as a Research Fellow in the School of Psychology at London South Bank University and in the School of Health Sciences at the University of Brighton.

Shemane is currently working as a Research Fellow at the University of Brighton on the Physio First Data for Impact Project.  This is a collaborative project spanning over a decade between the University of Brighton and Physio First (the Organisation for Chartered Physiotherapists in Private Practice) to gain information about current practice, patient demographics and evidence the outcome of care within physiotherapy private practices in the UK. 

In addition to her research work, Shemane has taught on the Sport and Exercise Science undergraduate degree at the University of Brighton.  

Shemane has an interest in the evaluation of health interventions, and the development and application of outcome measures to evaluate change. Shemane has over 10 years of experience in applied health research, and has a strong interest in working with large data sets, psychometrics and more recently, Rasch analysis. Through her long-standing involvement with the Physio First Data for Impact project, Shemane has focused on the development of outcome measures (patient and practitioner reported) for MSK conditions, the application of standardised data collection in clinical practice, practice profiling and quality assurance in physiotherapy.