Brief Biography for Professor Margaret Barry

Margaret M. Barry, Ph.D., holds the Established Chair in Health Promotion and Public Health and is Director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Health Promotion Research at the University of Galway. Professor Barry has published widely in health promotion and works closely with policymakers and practitioners on the development, implementation and evaluation of mental health promotion interventions and policies at national and international level.

Professor Barry was elected as Global President of the International Union for Health Promotion and Education from 2019-2022, having previously held the position of Vice President for Capacity Building, Education and Training from 2007-2010. She has extensive experience of coordinating European and international collaborative projects and has served as temporary advisor to the WHO and project leader on major European Union funded initiatives. Professor Barry serves on a number of international and European research groups and scientific committees and has acted as expert adviser on mental health promotion policy and research development in a number of countries around the world. She is co-author of the international text Implementing Mental Health Promotion, which was published as a second edition (Barry, Clarke, Petersen and Jenkins, 2019).

Professor Barry has served two terms as a scientific member of the European Commission Expert Panel on Effective Ways of Investing in Health (2013-2019). She was awarded a Dobbin Atlantic Scholarship to the National Collaborating Centre for the Determinants of Health, St Francis Xavier University, Canada in 2017; Visiting Healthway Research Fellow at Curtin University, Western Australia in 2013; Visiting Fellow at the Victorian Health Foundation, Australia in 2007; and Visiting Lecturer in 2002 at the World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre at the Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College, London.

Having completed her primary degree and doctoral studies in Psychology at Trinity College, Dublin, she has held previous posts as Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Birmingham, UK; Lecturer in Psychology at Trinity College, Dublin, and Deputy Director of the Health Services Research Unit at University College, North Wales.