Dr Grainne Donoghue

Dr Grainne Donoghue

CDP-CDP Core Partner
School of Public Health, Physiotherapy and Sports Science, University College Dublin

Dr Grainne Donoghue's research interests lie in exercise promotion and prescription for clinical populations, determinants of physical activity and sedentary behaviour and ‘real life’ interventions to address inactivity and excess sitting time in preclinical and clinical groups (obesity, pre-diabetes, chronic low back pain).

She is a chartered physiotherapist who had 10-years clinical experience prior to commencing her PhD 2008), when she was employed in the Irish Health Service as a physiotherapist. She still collaborates with clinical colleagues from an educational and research perspective, making her familiar with current patient demographics, and the need for an improved focus on the utilisation of exercise as a scientifically evidenced intervention. On completion of her PhD (2011), she worked in the Steno Diabetes Center, Copenhagen, with the Diabetes Prevention Research Group as a post-doctoral researcher for 3 years. Her research focused on the heterogeneity in response to exercise programmes for pre-diabetes. On returning to Dublin City University’s (2015) Centre for Preventive Medicine, she was employed as a senior researcher, working on two EU-funded projects; DEDIPAC (Determinants of Diet and Physical Activity) and InterConnect (Global Data for Diabetes and Obesity Research). Currently Grainne is employed in University College Dublin as an Assistant Professor in the School of Public Health, Physiotherapy and Sports Science. Here she teaches and supervises both undergraduate and postgraduate students and is the course coordinator of the PG Cert in Clinical Exercise. Grainne has more than 40 peer reviewed scientific publications and is currently supervising three PhD students, all conducting research in the fields of physical activity, exercise and sedentary behaviour. She is a member of the National Clinical Programme for Diabetes, the National Advisory Committee for Exercise is Medicine, and the Irish Physical Activity Research Collaboration.

  • Visit Grainne's profile at UCD HERE
  • Visit Grainne's profile on ResearchGate HERE
  • Follow Grainne on Twitter HERE