معرفی
Dr. Conor Murray serves as a Senior Lecturer at Ulster University within the School of Applied Social and Policy Sciences, Faculty of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences. Based at the Belfast campus (Room BC-07-107, 2-24 York Street) and Jordanstown Campus, he holds an active research profile with the Institute for Research in Social Sciences. His ORCID identifier is 0000-0003-4732-7097 and he can be contacted at c.murray4@ulster.ac.uk or +44 28 9536 5839.
Murray's research interests focus on criminology, social policy, and masculinities studies with particular emphasis on prison systems, gendered experiences in incarceration, and youth development in post-conflict societies. His expertise centers on Northern Ireland contexts, examining critical masculinities among young men in prison, sport-based interventions for rehabilitation, and the intersection of religion with criminal justice systems. His methodological strengths include ethnographic approaches, systematic reviews, and qualitative analysis through semi-structured interviews and focus groups.
His 28 research outputs demonstrate consistent scholarly activity from 2019-2025, with recent publications addressing abortion access in prisons, sport-based rehabilitation programs, and masculinities in Northern Ireland custody. Current research trends show increasing focus on interdisciplinary approaches combining criminology with health studies, sports sociology, and policy evaluation, particularly examining how sport-based interventions impact psychosocial well-being in prison environments.
- Early Career Educator Award (June 2023)
- Future Research Leader Award (June 2023)
Murray actively supervises doctoral research as evidenced by his role as Chair of PhD Viva Voce (November 2024) and as CoI on multiple ESRC-funded PhD projects including Tobias Niblock's OIV research and Jessica Spratt's OIV project. His grant portfolio includes substantial ESRC funding for projects such as 'Slipping Through the Net: An AI Assisted Analysis of How High Risk Clients Negotiate Anti-Money Laundering Checks' (2024-2028) and 'Development of a holistic tool to measure the impact of pain in adults with cerebral palsy' (2024-2029). He serves as reviewer for journals including Men and Masculinities, Criminal Justice and Behavior, and Ethnography.
His research team includes PhD researchers from the School of Applied Social and Policy Sciences, with collaborations extending to scholars working on systematic reviews, incarcerated women's experiences, and post-conflict masculinities. Current projects indicate strong interdisciplinary connections between criminology, health sciences, and sports sociology, particularly through sport-based interventions for prisoner rehabilitation and community development in marginalized Northern Irish communities.
