Maria Fitzgerald

Maria Fitzgerald was born in Hampstead, London. Her mother was Booker Prize–winning novelist Penelope Fitzgerald, author of the Blue Flower. Her father, Desmond Fitzgerald, was a major in the Irish Guards. Her older brother, Edmund Valpy Fitzgerald, is an emeritus professor in the Oxford Department of International Development. Maria was educated at Godolphin and Latymer School and Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, where she studied physiology. She was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1975 from the University of Oxford.[1] She trained in pain physiology and neuroscience with Bruce Lynn and Patrick David Wall at University College London, where she was awarded a PhD in 1978.[2][5] Maria was awarded her first research grant from the Medical Research Council in 1981, and her research has been continuously supported by the MRC ever since. She was awarded a "new blood lectureship" in the Department of Anatomy at UCL in 1984 and is now Professor of Developmental Neurobiology in the UCL Department of Neuroscience, Physiology and Pharmacology, and a member of UCL Neuroscience.

Fitzgerald studies the developmental physiology and neurobiology of nociceptor circuits[6] in the brain and spinal cord. Her work has had a major impact on our understanding of how pain perception emerges in early life and how early pain experience can shape pain sensitivity for life.[7] Fitzgerald's research has changed clinical perception by showing that pain in infancy requires appropriate measurement and treatment and that it should be tailored to the developmental stage of the child.[2][8]