Madeleine Murtagh

Professor Madeleine Murtagh

Professor of Sociology and Bioethics, PEALS Director

Madeleine Murtagh took up her post as Professor of Sociology and Bioethics in PEALS in 2017. Madeleine began her academic career in Australia, studying and teaching sociology, anthropology, public health and bioethics, before moving to the UK in 2000. Her earlier research examined how people interact with and make decisions about using new health treatments and technologies, and later expanded to consider practices of (open) data science in health (particularly in longitudinal cohort studies and biobanks) and health data ethics.

Madeleine conducts social studies of sociotechnical and normative practices in health research data sharing and governance as well as developing new forms of governance which centrally involve public, patients and research participants in ethical, policy and governance decision-making. She established and chairs the METADAC data and samples access infrastructure (www.metadac.ac.uk) for nine UK longitudinal studies.

Madeleine has an abiding interest in the epistemology and ethics of data science and the implications of data science understandings and practices for epistemic injustice. Her work is carried out in the context of transdisciplinary and intersectoral research collaborations, often in interventionist ethnographic studies. 

https://www.ncl.ac.uk/gps/staff/profile/madeleinemurtagh.html#background