Grace O’Malley

Dr Grace O'Malley leads a multidisciplinary clinical service assessing and treating child and adolescent obesity at Temple Street Children’s University Hospital, Dublin, Ireland. She graduated from Trinity College Dublin with a BSc (hons) in Physiotherapy and since 2004 has worked clinically in paediatric clinical care. Her MSc (TCD) explored the musculoskeletal effects of childhood obesity. Thereafter, Grace was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to the Yale University School of Medicine to investigate the pathophysiology of Type 2 diabetes in childhood obesity and the development of effective treatment strategies. Grace was awarded a PhD Fellowship by the Health Research Board and completed a PhD in Medicine (Epidemiology and Public Health) at University College Cork. Her thesis investigated the development and evaluation of childhood obesity treatment delivered via traditional and novel telehealth methods. Grace works in an academic capacity at the School of Physiotherapy, Division of Population Health Sciences, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and holds voluntary positions as Secretary of the European Association for the Study of Obesity, Committee member at the Association for the Study of Obesity on the Island of Ireland (www.asoi.info), the Childhood Obesity Task Force of EASO, and the Paediatric group of the World Confederation of Physical Therapists. In the BigO project she leads the clinical work package for Ireland in order to understand how best to develop useful tools for integration into healthcare and how such tools can be used by healthcare professionals.