Professor Deborah Falla

Role within SRMRC

Deborah is a senior PI and theme lead for Re-enablement and Rehabilitation. She is Chief Investigator of the project entitled “Development of a screening tool to predict the risk of chronic pain and disability following trauma: protocol for a prospective observational study”.

Other positions held

Visiting Professor, Department of Physiotherapy, University of Torino, Italy
Chair in Rehabilitation Science and Physiotherapy, School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation Sciences, College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham (UoB), UK
Director, Centre of Precision Rehabilitation for Spinal Pain (CPR Spine), School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation Sciences, College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham (UoB), UK

Qualifications

BPhty (First Class Honours) – University of Queensland, Australia
PhD – Department of Physiotherapy, University of Queensland, Australia

Based at

University of Birmingham

Biography

Since April 2016, Professor Falla is Chair in Rehabilitation Science and Physiotherapy at the School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation Sciences, University of Birmingham, UK. Professor Falla is also the Director of the Centre of Precision Rehabilitation for Spinal Pain
(CPR Spine) which was established at the University of Birmingham in 2017 following a ~£1M investment. She is a Senior PI for the NIHR Surgical Reconstruction and Microbiology Research Centre (SRMRC) and is a Senior PI and theme lead for Re-enablement and
Rehabilitation for the NIHR – MedTech and In Vitro Diagnostics Co-operative (MIC).

Her research utilises state of the art electrophysiological measures to evaluate the control of human movement and how it is affected or adapted in response to various states (e.g. pain, injury, fatigue, and training). Her research interests also include optimising management of
musculoskeletal conditions with a particular interest in spinal pain. She has published over 190 papers in international, peer-reviewed journals, more than 300 conference papers/abstracts including 38 keynote lectures.

Professor Falla acts as an Associate Editor for Musculoskeletal Science & Practice (formerly Manual Therapy), the Journal of Electromyography and Kinesiology and IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering. Between 2016-2018 she was President of the International Society of Electrophysiology and Kinesiology (ISEK).