Ellen Murphy

Ellen is a PhD student with the HRB-TMRN based at the HRB Clinical Research Facility University College Cork. Ellen holds a first-class honour bachelor’s degree in Public Health from University College Cork. From 2020 to 2021 Ellen worked as a research assistant for the TRAMS (trials research and methodologies unit) in the HRB Clinical Research Facility Cork and has been involved in various research projects.

Ellen’s doctoral research is focused on the planning and communication of retention in clinical trials. Her research consists of four pieces of work; investigating the cost of retention strategies, how retention is planned and communicated in clinical trial protocols, how retention is communicated in patient information leaflets and conducting interviews with trial team staff and trial participants to get a more in-depth understanding of the planning processes and communication of retention strategies in clinical trials. The overall project aims to investigating how retention is planned and communicated during the lifecycle of a clinical trial.

Ellen is also involved in other trial methods projects and is on the leadership team for the TMRP Trial Conduct Retention Working Group as of 2024.

She is supervised by Dr Frances Shiely (Senior Lecturer and Director of Education, HRB Clinical Research Facility, University College Cork) and Professor Katie Gillies (Director, Health Care Assessment Programme, Health Service Research Unit, University of Aberdeen).