Professor Skelton is an exercise physiologist with a degree in Human Sciences from University College London in 1990 and her PhD in Human and Applied Physiology (Strength, Power and Functional Ability of Healthy Older People) in 1995. She was the first recipient of the Research into Ageing Queen Mother Research Fellowship. She undertook her fellowship at St Mary’s Paddington and specialised in exercise interventions to reduce falls. She then moved into practice by becoming a Falls Researcher in the NHS at Merton, Sutton and Wandsworth Health Authority and setting up Later Life Training (a not for profit company) that still delivers evidence based exercise training to allied health professionals and fitness instructors to work with frailer older people. She was scientific co-ordinator of ProFaNE (Prevention of Falls Network Europe) and a workpackage leader in ProFouND (Prevention of Falls Network for Dissemination), two EC funded thematic networks. She led the MRC funded Seniors USP (Understanding Sedentary Patterns) and has received funding from NIHR and Wellcome Trust. She has received a Fellowship from the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and an Honorary Fellowship from the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy. A regular Keynote speaker around the world on falls prevention and exercise in older people, she recently received the British Geriatrics Society Marjory Warren Lifetime Achievement Award for her work in translating falls prevention research into practice. She is a commissioned author for the World Health Organisation and the Department of Health. She was Chair for the Royal Osteoporosis Society Expert Statement on Exercise and Osteoporosis and the Older People panel for the UK’s update of the Physical Activity for Health Guidelines. She is Guest Professor at Umeä University, Sweden and sits on Scientific Advisory Board for the MRC-ARUK Centre for Musculoskeletal Ageing Research.
