Sarah Rand

Physiotherapy, Class of 2003

Sarah Rand graduated from RCSI in 2003 with a BSc (Hons) in Physiotherapy. Prior to this she had completed a BA (Hons) in Natural Sciences (specialising in physiology) from Trinity College, Dublin. She completed an MSc at University College London in Advanced Cardiorespiratory Physiotherapy in 2010. She became a fellow of the Higher Education Academy in 2014 and was appointed as a Visiting Lecturer at RCSI in 2017.

Sarah played hockey for Ireland for many years and is also a qualified pilates instructor.

Sarah currently works at University College London (UCL) in the Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health (ICH) as a Senior Teaching Fellow and Research Physiotherapist on the Advanced Cardiorespiratory and Paediatrics Physiotherapy postgraduate programmes. Since commencing at UCL full-time in 2014, her academic role is mainly focused on co-ordinating and teaching on postgraduate physiotherapy modules, acting as a tutor and as a research supervisor for postgraduate physiotherapy students.

Prior to this, she worked as a clinical physiotherapist at Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital (GOSH) as a specialist cystic fibrosis (CF) physiotherapist and academic/research physiotherapist at the UCL GOS ICH. Other previous clinical roles have included working as a specialist paediatric respiratory physiotherapist at the Children’s University Hospital in Dublin and at the Royal Brompton Hospital in London.

Sarah’s specific current areas of research interest are exercise training and testing for individuals with CF and other chronic health conditions such as haemophilia and the use of technology solutions to assist the physiotherapy management of individuals with long-term conditions. She was awarded a Young Investigators award at the European Cystic Fibrosis Conference in 2012 for her research on exercise testing for children with CF. She is currently working as part of a health technology start-up as the research lead developing an innovative technology solution for children with CF and has been a successful co-applicant on a number of other large multi-centre grant applications

She has published a number of manuscripts in well-respected journals for the physiotherapy profession and clinical journals. She contributed to the core international Cardiorespiratory Physiotherapy textbook which was published in 2016. She has presented her research at national and international conferences and has been an invited speaker at a number of international conferences.