Professor Virginia Murray was appointed as Consultant in Global Disaster Risk Reduction for Public Health England in April 2014. This appointment is to take forward her work as vice-chair of the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) Scientific and Technical Advisory Group and as one of the members of the UNISDR Advisory Group for the Post-2015 Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. Prior to this she was appointed as Head of Extreme Events and Health Protection at Public Health England in January 2011. With the Extreme Events team, she helped to develop evidence-based information and advice on flooding, heat, cold, volcanic ash, and other extreme weather and natural hazards events. She has extensive experience in chemical incident response and has provided training courses and materials and has published widely on environmental toxicology. Through her various appointments as Visiting Professor in Health Protection, MRC-PHE Centre for Environment and Health, Imperial College and King’s College, London (2004) and Honorary Professor at University College London (2013), Professor Murray plays a significant academic role in producing literature on the intersection of health and disasters. She also continues to contribute to many national and international meetings on disaster risk reduction.