Dr Jennifer Ryan

Jennifer Ryan joined RCSI in 2018 as a StAR Research Lecturer. She worked as a Lecturer and subsequently a Senior Lecturer in Physiotherapy at Brunel University London from 2013.

Her first degree was a BSc (Hons) in Physiotherapy, which she completed in Trinity College Dublin. She received a PhD from Trinity College Dublin in 2014 and an MSc in Medical Statistics from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 2017. She became a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy in 2015. She has Graduate Statistician membership of the Royal Statistical Society and is a member of the Irish Society of Chartered Physiotherapists and the Chartered Society of Physiotherapists.

Jennifer’s research interests are in the area of chronic disease risk and physical activity among people with disability. She is particularly interested in examining the burden of chronic disease and interventions to increase physical activity and physical fitness in people with disability. She is the lead author of a Cochrane review on exercise for cerebral palsy. She was a member of the Physical Activity and Disability Expert Group (PADEG) for ‘Physical activity for general health benefits in disabled adults: Summary of a rapid evidence review for the UK Chief Medical Officers’ update of the physical activity guidelines’.

Jennifer is currently Principal Investigator of a HRB funded project examining transition from child to adult health services for young people with cerebral palsy in Ireland. She is also an investigator on projects examining interventions to promote activity among people with stroke and cerebral palsy. She was previously Principal Investigator of two randomised controlled trials: the iStep-MS trial, a randomised controlled trial to determine the feasibility and acceptability of an intervention to change physical activity behaviour in people with multiple sclerosis, and the STAR trial, a randomised controlled trial of resistance training for adolescents with cerebral palsy.