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To celebrate Science Week, we’ve put together a bumper list of 25 scientists based in Ireland who are innovating across STEM.
From planetary defence and counterfeit fossils to sustainable sensors and novel drug discovery methods, we’re celebrating Science Week with a list of some of the most original thinkers working in Ireland’s research institutions right now.
Lizy Abraham
Dr Abraham is head of the Emerging Networks Labs Division in the Walton Institute at South East Technological University. Her research team is developing artificial intelligence (AI) tools to improve diagnostics for children with congenital heart diseases.
She completed her PhD in image-signal processing at the University of Kerala, India, before undertaking postdoctoral research at the Tyndall National Institute in University College Cork.
Speaking about her research, Abraham said: “This could significantly improve patient care by enabling timely intervention and treatment, ultimately leading to better health outcomes for affected children.”
Rachel Beatty
Dr Beatty lectures in anatomy and AI applications for healthcare at the University of Galway, where she completed her PhD. She is a roboticist, with research interests including robotics, bioinspired advanced biomaterials, drug delivery and advanced microscopy. Her current research is focused on how and where AI is already being employed in medicine to identify potential gaps and spaces for new technologies on the market.
“I’m really interested in technologies that can have an impact on people’s living with chronic health conditions,” Beatty said.
Isabella Capellini
Dr Capellini is an ecologist who works in the School of Biological Sciences at Queen’s University Belfast. She received her PhD in biology from Newcastle University. She’s interested in animal behaviour and how it’s affected by environmental factors. A topic she is particularly focused on is sleep, particularly the sleep patterns of wild animals.
“Sleep is a self-maintenance behaviour … Sleep is self-care. But because it’s so difficult to study in the wild, we really do not know how sleep fits within the ecology of a species,” she said.
Jonathan Coleman
Prof Coleman is a professor of materials science and head of the School of Physics at Trinity College Dublin and a principal investigator at the AMBER Research Ireland Centre for Advanced Materials and Bioengineering Research.
Coleman’s primary areas of research are solution processing of nanomaterials, predominately carbon nanotubes, nanowires and 2D nanosheets such as graphene.
One project he is involved with aims to develop advanced materials for building structures in space. Another project centres on developing new materials for batteries so they can store more energy and be charged quickly.
“Given the climate crisis and the need to move away from fossil fuels, it is more important than ever to develop new batteries with improved capability,” he said.
Maurice Collins
Prof Collins is a professor of materials science in the School of Engineering at the University of Limerick. He is principal investigator at the Bernal Institute and at the Health Research Institute.
His current research is on sustainable composite materials for applications such as energy storage, energy generation, biomedical and structures.
“If we want to transition to a circular bioeconomy, we need to have sustainable materials. Otherwise, we cannot do it because most materials are based on fossil fuels which are derived from oil, and this has biodiversity effects and climate effects,” Collins said.
Fidelma Dunne
Prof Dunne works at the School of Medicine and is associate director of the Clinical Research Facility at University of Galway and a consultant endocrinologist at Galway University Hospitals group.
Her research primarily focuses on pregnancy and diabetes. Last year, Dunne led a large trial which showed promising results with the use of the drug metformin for gestational diabetes.
“Metformin has emerged as an effective alternative for managing gestational diabetes, offering new hope for expectant mothers and healthcare providers worldwide,” she said.
Andrei Ermakov
Dr Ermakov is an engineer and works in the Centre for Ocean Energy Research at Maynooth University. He completed his PhD in fluid mechanics and the theory of water waves at the University of Southern Queensland.
Currently, he is working to improve wave energy devices to reduce costs, maximise energy produced and extend device lifespan.
“Ireland has one of the best wave resources on the planet with the potential to provide double Ireland’s electricity needs,” Ermakov said.
Eoin Feeney
Prof Feeney researches infectious diseases including Covid-19, HIV and mpox. He obtained his medicine degree from Trinity College Dublin and his PhD from University College Dublin, where he now works as a clinical professor.
He is leading a new mpox vaccine trial in five hospitals across Ireland to investigate immune responses to the mpox vaccine MVA-BN – the first vaccine against mpox to be added to the World Health Organization’s pre-qualification list. There has been a surge in mpox infections in nine countries in Africa, with the Democratic of Congo the worst affected so far. Feeney’s research is part of the effort to improve clinical responses to mpox and other global health threats.
Alan Fitzsimmons
Prof Fitzsimmons researches astrophysics in the School of Mathematics and Physics and in the Astrophysics Research Centre at Queen’s University Belfast. His research focuses on the area of asteroid and cometary science. He uses observatories to measure the physical properties of solar system bodies and their composition.
He has been assisting the European Space Agency to plan the Hera mission for decades.
Fitzsimmons said Hera is a critical step for planetary defence in preparation for the day when humanity might need to deflect a threatening asteroid. “Scientists and engineers from all over the world have been involved; it’s an example of best practice in international scientific collaboration for the greater good,” he said.
Sarah Guerin
Dr Guerin runs the Actuate Lab in the Department of Physics and Bernal Institute at the University of Limerick (UL). She completed her PhD in UL before undertaking postdoctoral work at the SSPC Research Ireland Centre for Pharmaceuticals.
She currently works on engineering biomolecular crystals to develop materials for eco-friendly sensing and pharmaceuticals.
“These materials have potential applications in medical devices, as well as being natural energy harvesters – they can generate electricity from the everyday forces around us, such as walking or vibrations,” Guerin explained.
Laura Hayes
Dr Hayes is a Royal Society-Research Ireland university research fellow at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. She received her PhD in physics from Trinity College Dublin and has worked at NASA and the European Research Agency.
Currently, Hayes is focused on flare observations taken from the Solar Orbiter mission, which was launched in 2020 to collect the closest ever images of the sun and answer complex questions relating to solar wind and its impact on our planet.
“Why it’s important to study [solar flares] is because they can significantly affect space weather, which has real impacts on Earth,” Hayes said.
David Henshall
Prof Henshall is a professor in the Department of Physiology and Medical Physics at RSCI University of Medicine and Health Sciences and director of FutureNeuro, the Research Ireland Centre for Neurological Conditions.
He has a PhD in neuropharmacology from University of Edinburgh and for 20 years has researched neurological and psychiatric conditions, with a particular focus on epilepsy drug treatments.
In recent years, Henshall and his team developed treatments that dramatically reduce seizure activity in animal epilepsy trials. Having seen the results in animals, Henshall is feeling confident about moving to human trials. “I trust our brain; I think it’s going to be able to handle a little off-target activity and can kind of compensate in other ways.”
Sarah Hudson
Prof Hudson researches and lectures in the area of chemical sciences at the University of Limerick. She completed her PhD at UL before undertaking a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship at MIT. She is a principal investigator at the SSPC Research Ireland Centre for Pharmaceuticals.
She focuses on developing drug delivery designs and novel drugs for future medicines.
“As we all live longer and longer with chronic disorders and diseases, being able to take medicines in a way that gives us a good quality of life becomes really important,” Hudson said.
Margaret Jackson
Dr Jackson is a glacial geomorphologist and palaeoclimatologist at Trinity College Dublin. She obtained her PhD in earth sciences from Dartmouth College and worked as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellow at the University of Galway.
Her research focuses on how changes in climate are reflected in glacial landscapes.
“Climate change is perhaps the greatest challenge we face. Understanding our climate system and its capacity for change is a fundamental first step in projecting how our climate system will behave in the future,” Jackson said.
Patrick Kavanagh
Dr Kavanagh works at the Faculty of Science and Engineering at Maynooth University. He received his PhD from Dublin City University for his study of x-rays from the youngest galactic massive star clusters. Prior to taking up a role in Maynooth, he worked at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies where he developed software for the mid-infrared instrument on the James Webb Space Telescope.
Earlier this year, Kavanagh was part of a team of researchers that solved a great supernova mystery using observations from the James Webb. “We knew immediately that this was something special that could finally answer the question on the nature of the compact object,” Kavanagh said.
Ed Lavelle
Prof Lavelle is an immunologist and works in the School of Biochemistry and Immunology at Trinity College Dublin. His research primarily focused on developing injectable and mucosal vaccines for infectious diseases. He also leads a research group that is developing therapeutic vaccines for cancer and investigating vaccine strategies that promote “immunogenic cell death”, with the goal of enhancing protective immunity.
Last year, he was recognised by the Irish Society for Immunology for his major contributions that have pushed forward understanding in the field.
“This is a golden era for vaccine research and we hope that our work on vaccine adjuvants can contribute to further advances, particularly for cancer vaccination where there is a desperate need for novel and more effective approaches,” Lavelle said.
David Long
Dr Long studies ‘space weather’ to develop forecasting systems to prepare for future solar storm events. He works as an assistant professor in solar physics in the School of Physical Sciences at Dublin City University. He completed his PhD in astrophysics at Trinity College Dublin, with the final year spent at the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics.
His research mostly focuses on understanding the origin and evolution of solar eruptive events. These eruptions travel out into the solar system and can then hit Earth, affecting satellites, communications, ground-based power systems and commercial flights.
“As the world has become more interconnected, and with the recent strong solar activity that produced the aurorae over Ireland in May, there is definitely more of an awareness among the public of the work being done to try and understand these phenomena and how they affect us,” Long said.
Philip Long
Dr Philip Long is a lecturer in the robotics and automation group at Atlantic Technological University. He completed a PhD in robotics at École Centrale de Nantes in France, before undertaking postdoctoral research at Northeastern University in Boston, working with NASA’s humanoid robot to help in nuclear decommissioning tasks.
Currently, Long is creating tools that allow humans to quickly and safely teach robots by ‘showing’ them tasks rather than explicitly programming them.
“Human-centred robotics could alleviate a lot of issues by combining the flexibility of humans with the repeatability of robot,” he said.
Joanne Masterson
Dr Masterson’s research is in biomedical sciences, specifically mucosal biology, in the Department of Biology at Maynooth University. She is interested in “any part of our body that comes into contact with our external environment, like our lungs, skin and gut”.
“I particularly focus on the cells that form the physical barrier that is there, called the epithelium, and this epithelium is often misprogrammed or leaky in many chronic diseases,” she explained.
She works with clinical and pharmaceutical collaborators to develop new drug treatments to tackle pernicious digestive diseases.
Kieran Moran
Prof Moran is a professor of biomechanics in the School of Health and Human Performance at Dublin City University and a principal investigator at the Insight Research Ireland Centre for Data Analytics. Moran studies how humans and animals move to learn how to help people stay injury free and rehabilitate after injuries and illnesses.
Moran says humans’ running technique contributes to injury and he suggests we can learn from how animals such as elephants and tree-dwelling monkeys have evolved to run in a way that reduces loading on the body. “They both achieve this by using a form of ‘cushioned running’ where they flex their hips and knees and keep their main body mass and feet closer to the floor,” Moran said.
Joanne O’Brien
Dr O’Brien is a lecturer in marine ecology and bioacoustics at Atlantic Technological University, where she obtained her PhD. In the last 20 years, she has carried out numerous offshore and inshore marine mammal visual and acoustic surveys. She is currently working on a large project to track marine species across Europe.
“We’re putting equipment in the water, listening and then starting to piece together a puzzle as to what’s going on there,” O’Brien said.
Shane O’Reilly
Dr O’Reilly is a chemistry professor in Atlantic Technological University. He completed a PhD in marine biogeochemistry in Dublin City University and undertook postdoctoral research at MIT and University College Dublin. He studies the composition of organic matter in the environment to understand on a molecular level what’s happening in ecosystems.
Recently, his focus has turned towards coming up with new indicators to better monitor the health of soils and discovering new compounds from marine microbes that could benefit society.
“Humans will always use natural resources. By studying and highlighting problems or changes in the natural world and coming up with solutions, scientists will move our relationship from being an exploitative one to more of an informed, sustainable one,” O’Reilly said.
Valentina Rossi
Dr Rossi is a researcher in palaeobiology at University College Cork, where she received her PhD. She works on the preservation of pigments and soft tissues such as skin and internal organs in fossil vertebrates.
Earlier this year, she worked with a team to uncover a fake fossil using ultraviolet photography.
“Fake fossils are among us, passing almost undetected under the eye of experts all over the world. This is a serious problem – counterfeited specimens can mislead palaeontologists into studying an ancient past that never existed,” Rossi said.
Saritha Unnikrishnan
Dr Unnikrishnan is a lecturer in computing at Atlantic Technological University, where she undertook a PhD in computer vision and machine learning, focusing on pharma applications.
Her current research projects include developing explainable artificial intelligence methods to accelerate the trust and generalisability of AI in cancer diagnosis, multimodal AI approaches in breast cancer screening and staging, and generative AI approaches for developing virtual contrast enhancement tools for brain MRI.
“My research is trying to address some of the pressing challenges in healthcare and energy-intensive manufacturing by leveraging the power of AI and at the same time addressing some of the well-known AI challenges such as lack of transparency and generalisability,” Unnikrishnan said.
Karen Wiltshire
Prof Wiltshire was recently announced as the inaugural chair of climate science at Trinity College Dublin, a joint appointment by the School of Engineering and School of Natural Sciences. She is a climate ecologist, with a special focus on coastal research.
In her new role, Wiltshire will research long-term climate-related shifts in vulnerable ecosystems and food webs. She will also emphasise the need for inter-stakeholder dialogue, holistic systems-oriented education and transdisciplinary research.
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