Picture of Samantha Murphy

Dr Samantha Murphy

Associate Head Of School, Strategic Growth

School of Health, Wellbeing & Social Care

sam.murphy@open.ac.uk

Biography

Professional biography

I joined the Open University in June 2010 to work on K260, Death and dying. Up until then I had been a lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of Westminster.

Since joining the OU I have worked on modules at all levels of the undergraduate programme in Health and Social Care as well as our Masters in Advancing Healthcare Practice. I have been academic adviser on several co-productions (with both the BBC and Channel 4) including the BAFTA-nominated documentary How to Die: Simon's Choice.

I was appointed Assistant Head of the Department of Health and Social Care in November 2015 and, since August 2016 I have been Head of the Health and Social Care Curriculum Area. 

My specific interest in the area of death and dying is pregnancy loss and my ESRC-funded doctoral research, undertaken at the University of Surrey, was a sociological exploration of parental experiences of stillbirth.  I am also a member of the Association for the Study of Death and Society and the British Sociological Association.

 

Research interests

All forms of reproductive loss

Teaching interests

Death and dying, sociology of health and illness, communication.

Projects

Willen Hospice PhD co-funding for issues related to the end of life in MK

What is the role of the environment and culture of the hospice in MK that means that people choose this over dying at home?

Publications

Book

Unpacking Sensitive Research: Epistemological and Methodological Implications (2022)

Lost Futures: Stillbirth and the Social Construction of Grief (2010)

Book Chapter

The art of ‘sensitive’ supervision: supporting, sharing and strengthening (2025)

We can’t play with them, but we can play for them’: fathers uniting in grief through football (2024)

Fathering a dead baby: men and perinatal loss (2024)

Researching perinatal death: managing the myriad of emotions in the field (2022)

Bereaved parents: a contradiction in terms? (2013)

Journal Article

‘I just get on with it’: narratives of women who become mothers during undergraduate study (2025)

Exploring the experiences of distance learning students being supported to resubmit a final assignment following a fail result (2023)

Support after stillbirth: Findings from the Parent Voices Initiative Global Registry Project (2023)

Researching perinatal death: managing the myriad of emotions in the field (2021)

Unpacking sensitive research: a stimulating exploration of an established concept (2021)

New understandings of fathers’ experiences of grief and loss following stillbirth and neonatal death: a scoping review (2019)

“I'd failed to produce a baby and I'd failed to notice when the baby was in distress”: The social construction of bereaved motherhood (2019)

Learning from deaths: Parents’ Active Role and ENgagement in The review of their Stillbirth/perinatal death (the PARENTS 1 study) (2017)

The psychological, social, and economic impact of stillbirth on families (2017)

Case study: what supports students to improve their grades? (2016)

Women's experiences of termination for fetal abnormality in a United Kingdom hospital setting: a systematic review protocol (2015)

By the way knowledge: grandparents, stillbirth and neonatal death (2014)

Stillbirth and loss: family practices and display (2013)

Finding the positive in loss: stillbirth and its potential for parental empowerment (2013)

Reclaiming a moral identity: stillbirth, stigma and ‘moral mothers’ (2012)

Presentation / Conference

Who shouts the loudest? The demographics of research into child bereavement (2015)

The Good Stillbirth (2014)

Presentation / Conference Contribution

Supporting father’s emotional care following perinatal loss: utilising creative approaches for knowledge translation with health professionals (2025)

Supporting fathers following perinatal loss: uniting a community of loss through football (2024)