biology

Maria Fitzgerald

Maria Fitzgerald is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Maria Fitzgerald rather than just read about it. In short: Maria Fitzgerald is a British neuroscientist who is a professor in the Department of Neuroscience at University College London. Early life and education Maria Fitzgerald was born in Hampstead, London.

Key takeaways

Maria Fitzgerald belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Maria Fitzgerald to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Maria Fitzgerald from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Maria Fitzgerald is a British neuroscientist who is a professor in the Department of Neuroscience at University College London.

Early life and education 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. 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. 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.

Research and career Fitzgerald studies the developmental physiology and neurobiology of nociceptor circuits 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. 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.

Awards and honours In recognition of her work Fitzgerald was awarded the Jeffrey Lawson Award for Advocacy in Children's Pain Relief from the American Pain Society in 2011, the first basic scientist to have received this award. In 2013 she was elected to the Faculty of Pain Medicine of the Royal College of Anaesthetists for sustained and significant contributions to pain medicine. She was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci) in 2000 and a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2016. She has been awarded honorary membership in the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP), the British Pain Society, the International Society for Pediatric Pain (ISPP) and the Physiological Society A podcast describing her research career is available on the Pain Research Forum.

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Maria Fitzgerald

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Maria Fitzgerald claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Maria Fitzgerald before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Maria Fitzgerald ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Maria Fitzgerald

In research: Maria Fitzgerald appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Maria Fitzgerald in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Maria Fitzgerald is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1953 births, Alumni of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, Alumni of University College London, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Maria Fitzgerald outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Maria Fitzgerald in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Maria Fitzgerald means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Maria Fitzgerald out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Maria Fitzgerald in simple terms?

Maria Fitzgerald is a British neuroscientist who is a professor in the Department of Neuroscience at University College London. Early life and education Maria Fitzgerald was born in Hampstead, London.

Why does Maria Fitzgerald matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Maria Fitzgerald?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Maria Fitzgerald.