Dr Una Murray has over thirty years of senior-level professional and research experience in international development, working with leading global institutions including United Nations agencies, governments, bilateral donors, and non-governmental organisations. Her extensive field and policy experience informs both her teaching and research at university level, ensuring that her academic work is of high quality and closely aligned with real-world impact in the global international development arena.

Since joining the University of Galway as a 0.5 FTE Lecturer, Dr Murray established (and served as Programme Director of) the MA in International Development Practice. In this role, she led the development and delivery of a Masters programme that prepares a diverse cohort of national and international students annually for impactful careers in international development.

Dr Murray is actively engaged in collaborative international research and has an established record of peer-reviewed publications and commissioned research reports produced in partnership with international development organisations.

She is currently Principal Investigator of a Research Ireland–funded COALESCE project, NaHuDi, which seeks to inform livelihood reconstruction in contexts affected by climate change, conflict, and internal displacement.

Previously, she led an IRC COALESCE project on Migration, Climate Change and Social Protection (MiCASP) in Ethiopia, which contributed evidence to policy debates and processes within the UNFCCC negotiations. Her publications appear in a wide range of high-impact international development journals with a particular emphasis on social inclusion in climate adaptation. In December 2024, she was nominated to participate in the scoping of the IPCC Seventh Assessment Report.

Dr Murray is a member of an ENLIGHT Thematic Network that has a focus on Migration and Disability, and is part of another ENLIGHT Network focused on collaboration with Africa.

In addition to her academic role, Dr Murray works extensively as a United Nations evaluator and consultant across multiple UN agencies, with thematic expertise in migration, labour, gender, and child labour in agriculture. Her evaluation experience includes assessing the International Organization for Migration’s institutional response to climate change; serving as a senior evaluator for IFAD’s thematic evaluation on gender; and evaluating UNICEF projects and programmes. She led a team conducting a formative evaluation of UNICEF’s response to migrant children in the Horn of Africa and evaluated UNICEF’s country programme in Malaysia.

Dr Murray previously held a lectureship in international development at University College Cork (UCC) and has contributed to teaching across several University of Galway postgraduate programmes, including the MSc in Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security; the MA in Gender, Rights and Globalisation; and the MA in Environment, Society and Development. While at UCC, she also taught on MA programmes in Rural Development at two universities in Ethiopia. Additionally, she has been an invited lecturer at Maynooth University (Community Development), University College Dublin (International Development), and Mary Immaculate College (Development Studies).

International Development; Sustainable Development Goals; Migration; Poverty Reduction; Social Protection

Climate Change: NAPs/NDCs; Adaptation; Resilience; Just Transition; IPCC

Policy Processes

Evaluations: Methodologies; Theories of Change

Labour issues: Child Labour; Green Jobs; Migrant labourers

Gender and Social Inclusion: Gender Analaysis; Gender and Institutions

International Development (a process of change involving nations, economies, political alliances, institutions, groups, NGOs and individuals).

NaHuDi

MiCASP

ENLIGHT - Migration and Disability