The George Institute for Global Health and Imperial College London mourn the passing of Dr Margie Peden, who died on Thursday 29 January 2026. A globally esteemed leader in injury prevention research and advocacy, Margie dedicated her life's work to reduce the burden of injury-related death and disability and improve recovery outcomes for individuals and communities worldwide.
As Director of the Global Injury Programme at The George Institute for Global Health and Principal Research Fellow at Imperial College London, Margie's work identified interventions that could save and improve lives, particularly in areas with limited resources. Her work was grounded in real people and real constraints: preventing injuries on roads, addressing drowning, burns, and falls, and improving trauma management, rehabilitation and care.
Margie's career began in nursing in Cape Town, South Africa and expanded into epidemiology, first taking on national trauma research and from there widening into global leadership. She spent 17 years at the World Health Organization coordinating work on unintentional injury prevention, especially road safety, before bringing that depth of experience to The George Institute for Global Health.
Margie held a Conjoint Senior Lecturer post at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, was a Senior Technical Advisor at Johns Hopkins University's International Injury Research Unit, chaired the Global Advisory Board for the Malawi Road Safety Research and Implementation Unit at the University of Malawi and was Co-Director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre on Injury Prevention and Trauma Care. Margie was also a member of the Commonwealth Road Safety Initiative Expert Panel, a group responsible for assessing progress made during the Decade of Action for Road Safety and was global coordinator for the Road Safety in 10 Countries initiative. Across her career, she authored or co-authored well over 100 publications, building an evidence base that has strengthened policy and practice around the world, further supported by the Global Injury Prevention Network, a platform Margie founded for collaboration and knowledge sharing among injury prevention professionals worldwide.
Over recent months, celebrations and tributes to Margie have highlighted not only her remarkable professional achievements but also the mentorship, generosity, kindness, humour and wisdom she offered to the many people she managed, students she taught, and collaborators she championed throughout her career. She brought warmth, steadiness, and humanity into the hardest conversations and most challenging contexts. Her work, and the commitment she brought to it, touched many lives and leaves a wide-reaching legacy.
