Consultant in Global Disaster Risk Reduction, Public Health England

Visiting Professor in Health Protection, MRC-HPA Centre for Environment and Health, Imperial College and King’s College, London

Policy Fellow Alum, Centre for Science and Policy

Virginia Murray FFPH, FRCP, FFOM, FRCPath qualified in medicine. In 1980 she joined Guy and St Thomas’s Hospital Poisons Unit and in 1986 was appointed consultant medical toxicologist. In 1989 she started the Chemical Incident Research Programme and was Director of the Chemical Incident Response Service from 1995.

Virginia was appointed as Consultant in Global Disaster Risk Reduction for Public Health England in April 2014. This appointment is to take forward her work as vice-chair of the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR) Scientific and Technical Advisory Group and as the Chair of the Science & Technology Organising Committee for the UNISDR Science and Technology Conference on the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 January 27-29 2016

From 2003 Virginia worked for the Health Protection Agency’s Centre for Radiation, Chemicals and Environmental hazards (CRCE). She has considerable experience in advising on toxicological and environmental public health aspects of response to acute and chronic chemical and extreme event incidents. Appointed as Visiting Professor in Health Protection, Visiting Professor in Health Protection, MRC-HPA Centre for Environment and Health, Imperial College and King’s College, London (2004), she has also published widely.

On 1 January 2011, she was appointed as Head of HPA’s Extreme Events and Health Protection section (since April 1 2013 this was transferred to Public Health England). She is taking forward work on evidence base information and advice on flooding, heat, cold, volcanic ash, and other extreme weather and natural hazards events.

In addition, Virginia has been a Coordinating Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation, published in March 2012. She has been the UK Government member on the UN International Strategy for Disaster Scientific and Technical Advisory Group since 2008 and she is also a member of the Hyogo Framework for Action Mid Term Review Advisory Group, representing science, for the UN ISDR since 2010 and this role is likely to be ongoing to 2015.