Staff Bios

2020

‌Below are the bios of the Academic staff promoted in Round 2 of the Academic Promotions scheme 2020.
(Note, this is not the definitive list of applicants promoted in Round 2, only those who submitted their bios in support of this initiative).

     

Dr Marie Coggins, Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor, School of Physics

Marie is a native of Sligo, she completed her PhD at NUI Galway under the supervision of Prof. Gerard Jennings (Experimental Physics). Following her PhD she worked in the Pharmaceutical sector as an Occupational Hygiene Professional, before commencing a lecturing post in the School of Physics in 2003. Marie has held the role of Programme Director of the professional accredited postgraduate and undergraduate programmes in Occupational and Environmental Health & Safety. She leads the NUI Galway Exposure Science research team, where her research focuses on characterizing the magnitude of human exposure and exposure pathways for a range of pollutants across multiple microenvironments as well as evaluating the impact of human exposure or exposure interventions on health. This research continues to inform the development of both Environmental and Energy policy. She is an Irish representative and board member on the International Energy Agency’s, Technology collaboration Programme - Annex 5, Air Infiltration and Ventilation Centre (AIVC).  Since the start of the COVID-19 Pandemic she has been a member of the NSAI Expert committee on requirements and methods of testing for community face coverings and currently serves on the National Expert Group on the Role of Ventilation in Reducing Transmission of COVID-19. Initially established as a subgroup of the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET), this group now works with the Irish Governments Senior Official’s Group to further inform sectoral guidance and public information regarding ventilation.

 

     

Dr Maeve Duffy, Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor, School of Engineering

Maeve is originally from Bundoran, Co. Donegal. She completed the BE in Electronic Engineering at NUI Galway, followed by a PhD (on modelling of planar magnetic components) under the supervision of Prof Ger Hurley. She then spent over 4 years researching at the Tyndall National Institute in Cork, where she collaborated on several European and industry funded projects on microfabricated magnetic components. She returned to a lecturing position in NUI Galway in 2001 and has continued to develop her research in power electronics and biomedical applications, most of which is industry focused, in the Power Electronics Research Centre. She is Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics and publishes widely in high impact journals and international conferences. She has been programme director for the BE and ME in Electrical & Electronic Engineering since 2007. Maeve leads the electrical design team of the Galway Energy Efficient Car (the GEEC) student project, which has had continued success at the annual international Shell Eco-marathon competition.  

 

    

Dr Maura Farrell, Associate Professor, School of Geography, Archaeology and Irish Studies

Maura is a native of Galway and was educated at NUI Galway (BA in Geography and History, Higher Diploma in Education and PhD in Geography).  Maura’s teaching reflects her research specialism, which revolves around Rural and Agricultural Geography and her interests focus around processes of social, cultural and economic change for rural inhabitants.  Dr Farrell is currently the Principal Investigator on the Irish National Rural Network Project and the more recent Horizon 2020, RURALIZATION Project.  Maura is a widely published academic and extremely active outside university life, having been appointed to committees and organisation’s both nationally and internationally.  These include appointments at Irish Ministerial level to Rural and Agricultural Committees and by DG-AGRI at the EU Commission to Evaluation and Reflection groups for the LEADER Programme and the EU’s Long Term Rural Vision 2040. 

 

     

Dr Conor Hayes, Senior Lecturer, School of Computer Science

Conor grew up in Co. Wexford. He carried out his PhD work at the Machine Learning Lab at Trinity College Dublin, graduating in 2004. This was followed by 3 years of post-doctoral research at the Bruno Kessler Institute in Trento, Italy.  He  joined NUI Galway in 2007 as a postdoctoral fellow at the Digital Enterprise Research Institute (DERI). In 2012, Conor was appointed to lecturer above the bar in the College of Engineering and Informatics. From 2015 to 2018, he was the programme director for the MSc/Diploma in Computer Science in Data Analytics.  In 2018 he oversaw  funding acquisition for the development of a new  online MSc in Computer Science in Artificial Intelligence. In 2019, Conor was appointed as an academic director on the Student Digital Pathways Project.Conor is a Principle Investigator in the Insight Centre for Data Analytics at NUIG's Data Science Institute. He has published over 100 articles in peer-reviewed journals, books and conferences in the fields of Artificial Intelligence and Data analytics. He is a programme committee member for several leading conferences in these topics such as IJCAI,  WWW, RecSys, ICWSM. In 2020, Conor was part of the team that secured funding for the EU project Pandem-2, which will develop a Europe wide monitoring and management system for infectious diseases.

 

 

    

Dr Manuela Heinz, Senior Lecturer, School of Education

Manuela is originally from Dresden, Germany. She was educated at Dresden University (MA English and Spanish and Second-level teaching qualification), University of Zaragoza (Hispanic Studies), Edinburgh University (MSc International Politics), and NUI Galway (PhD Education and Dip. Psychology of Counselling). In her various roles as School Placement Director, Programme Director of the Professional Master of Education and Chair of the Teaching and Learning Committee she has been committed to developing caring education professionals and researchers who support, challenge and inspire children and young people and foster social justice and intercultural understanding in educational settings and wider society. Manuela led funded research and teaching projects (IRC, HEA, Erasmus+, Ubuntu) in the areas of teacher education, teacher diversity, equity, intercultural and global citizenship education. She has published widely in leading research journals and is a member of the editorial board of European Journal of Teacher Education. She has served on working groups and steering committees with a wide range of education partners including the Teaching Council, the Department of Education, the Ubuntu Network for Sustainable Development, and Comhairle na nÓg. She currently represents the Irish University Association on the National Teacher Supply Data Working Group and has recently been appointed as Head of Discipline of Education.

 

   

Professor Padraic Kenna, Personal Professor, School of Law

Padraic is a graduate of the University of Warwick (Law and Sociology) and NUI Galway (PhD). Lecturing in Irish land law, housing law and policy and international commercial property law, he is an international expert on housing rights. Prior to joining the University, Padraic developed significant expertise in housing rights advocacy, and in the development and management of social housing, both in the UK and Ireland. At NUI Galway, he established the Centre for Housing Law, Rights and Policy, attracting funding from the European Commission, Open Society Foundations, The Housing Agency and the Irish Council for Social Housing. Through extensive research, reports, journal articles and books, Padraic combines research with housing rights advocacy at national and European level. In 2019, his draft Bill requiring proportionality assessments in all mortgage possession cases, aiming to keep people in their homes, was enacted into law. Recently, he published a set of Briefings on how EU housing rights can be recognised, respected and promoted within the EU economic governance framework. His Research Report on the new ‘’Cost Rental Model” in Ireland as a Service of General Economic Interest, was launched by the Minister for Housing in May 2021. Currently, Padraic is developing an online course in European Housing Studies, with Universities and agencies across Europe, funded by Erasmus Plus.

 

    

Dr Rónán Kennedy, Senior Lecturer, School of Law

Rónán Kennedy is a native of County Kerry and was educated at NUI Galway, the King’s Inns, New York University, and University College London, where he took his PhD on the use of information and communications technology for environmental regulation under the supervision of Professor Jane Holder. He has published extensively on environmental law, information technology law, and other topics, and is co-author of two textbooks. He was Executive Legal Officer to the Chief Justice of Ireland, Mr Justice Ronan Keane, from 2000 to 2004. He was a member of the Advisory Committee of the Environmental Protection Agency from 2016 to 2019. In 2020, he was a Science Foundation Ireland Public Service Fellow in the Library and Research Service of the Oireachtas, researching the use of information and communications technology in legal services, and was a member of AI4People’s committees on the legal services and energy markets.

 

    

Dr Colin Lawton, Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor, School of Natural Sciences

Colin is originally from Lisburn in Northern Ireland but completed his BA and later his PhD in Zoology in Trinity College Dublin. Colin’s PhD research investigated the ecology of the invasive grey squirrel in Ireland, and he has continued his research on animal ecology and conservation since he joined Zoology in NUI Galway in 2001. His research has focused on a variety of vertebrate species, including squirrels, pine marten, mice, eel and reptiles and his work has been published in several international journals including Science.  Much of his work engages the public in scientific projects through Citizen Science.  Colin has held leadership positions as Head of Zoology, Vice Dean for Internationalisation in the College of Science and Deputy Chair of the Exam Appeals Committee.  He is currently the Head of the Biodiversity and Bioresources Cluster in the Ryan Institute. Colin is passionate about teaching students in the field, and has led undergraduate classes on a final year field course based in Morocco.

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Professor Patrick McGarry, Personal Professor, School of Engineering

Patrick McGarry was appointed as Lecturer in Biomedical Engineering in 2006 and promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2017. He has published over 100 papers in leading peer reviewed journals in the areas of solid mechanics, biomechanics, and advanced computational simulation. He has received several major funding awards from Science Foundation Ireland and EU-H2020.  He has supervised 21 PhD students and seven post-doctoral researchers. His research has been awarded ten major international prizes, in addition to three European Commission Innovation Radar awards for research impact. He has performed collaborative research with ten industry partners and six internationally leading clinical institutes in the fields of vascular, cardiac and orthopaedic biomechanics and medical device analysis. In 2015 he was awarded the NUIG President’s Award for Research Excellence. He has delivered 14 invited/keynote lectures at leading international conferences. In 2017 he was appointed as Visiting Professor at the Technical University of Graz and as Faculty Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin. He held a visiting faculty position at the University of Cambridge in 2018.

 

    

Professor Laura McLoughlin, Personal Professor, School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures

Laura is a native of Italy and was educated at the Università “La Sapienza” in Rome (Laurea in Lingue e Letterature Moderne), before taking a PhD in Italian Studies at NUI Galway under the supervision of Prof. Catherine O’Brien. She has published widely in the field of Applied Linguistics, concentrating mainly on language teaching methodology, e-learning, new technologies and subtitling in language teaching and translators’ training. She has lectured in Italy, Poland, UK, Kazakhstan and collaborated with many leading universities in Europe and beyond. She is the joint- funder and currently joint-Director of the Centre for Applied Linguistics and Multilingualism (CALM). She has received considerable national and international funding for language-related projects from the EU, National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning, IRC, NAIRTL and won the European Language Label in 2008, 2009 and 2013.

 

    

Dr Lorraine Morgan, Associate Professor, School of Business and Economics

Lorraine is a native of Nenagh, Co. Tipperary and was educated at University of Limerick (BA (Hons) and University College Cork (MSc).  She earned her PhD from University College Cork under the supervision of Professor Patrick Finnegan and Professor Joseph Feller. Lorraine joined NUI Galway’s School of Business and Economics as a Senior Research Fellow in 2010 and took up a lecturing position with the School in 2017.  Currently she is Programme Director for the BSc in Business Information Systems, Associate Head of Graduate Students in the School and Cluster Leader (Agile and Open Innovation) in the Whitaker Institute.  She has published extensively in leading journals on the subject of open source software, open innovation and crowdsourcing. Lorraine is also a Funded Investigator with Lero, the Irish Software Innovation Centre where she has led many projects around open innovation. In 2019, she was one of the recipients for the NUI Galway President's Award for Research Excellence and received the President’s award for Teaching Excellence in 2021.

 

    

Professor Dearbháile Morris, Personal Professor, School of Medicine

Dearbháile is a native of Galway and was educated at DCU (B.Sc. in Biotechnology) and NUI Galway (Ph.D. in Bacteriology). She is Head of the Discipline of Bacteriology and Director of the Centre for One Health at NUI Galway. She established the Antimicrobial Resistance and Microbial Ecology Group in 2010 and works closely with national and international research groups and other agencies focusing on antimicrobial resistance mechanisms and epidemiology, food and water borne pathogens, emerging contaminants, the wider societal impact of infection and One Health. She has secured over €10 million in research income and is leading NUI Galway’s participation in the One Health European Joint Programme. She has published widely in high impact journals and has been invited to deliver addresses at several national and international meetings. She is dedicated to excellence in undergraduate and postgraduate teaching and research and received the President’s award for research excellence in 2020.

 

    

Dr Colm O'Riordan, Senior Lecturer, School of Computer Science

Colm is a native of Cork and was educated at UCC (BSc in Computer Science, M.Sc. in Computer Science (Information Retrieval) and a PhD in Computer Science (Evolutionary game theory).  His research interests include information retrieval, evolutionary computation and evolutionary game theory.  He has published over 150 peer reviewed papers in these related fields.

 

    

Dr Shivaun Quinlivan, Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor, School of Law

Shivaun Quinlivan has extensive experience and a strong track record of research and advocacy in equality law, employment law and inclusive education.  Shivaun co-leads two inclusive learning projects at NUI Galway: an undergraduate project funded by the NUI Galway Student Project Fund, and a postgraduate project funded by the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.  She has published extensively on the right to equality and inclusive education, see in particular De Beco, G., Quinlivan S., & Lord, J., (Eds)(2019) The Right to Inclusive Education in International Human Rights Law (Cambridge University Press).  In 2020, Shivaun was awarded a President's Award for Societal Impact for her work as an expert advisor to the States of Guernsey, which led to the adoption of legislative proposals for new multi-ground equality legislation.  Shivaun holds a BA and LLB from NUI Galway, an LLM from King’s College London, a BL (Barrister at Law) from The Honourable Society of King’s Inns and a PhD from Trinity College Dublin.

 

    

Dr Aideen Ryan, Associate Professor, School of Medicine

Aideen is a native of Galway and was educated at NUI Galway before moving to University College Cork where she completed her PhD in the area of Cancer Immune Evasion. Following postdoctoral fellowships at NUI Galway in Cancer and Regenerative Medicine Institute, Aideen secured independent fellowships and a starting grant to start her research group in Tumour Immunology. Aideen was appointed a Galway University Foundation Lecturer in 2017. Aideen has published extensively in leading journals in the area of stromal cells in anti-tumour immunity and serves on the executive council of both the Irish Association of Cancer Research and Irish Society of Immunology. Aideen serves as Associate Editor and reviewer on international research journals. Aideen has secured national and international research funding. Aideen’s research discoveries on immunity in cancer, are recognised by keynote invitations and international research excellence awards and keynote invitations.  

  

 

Dr Eva Szegezdi, Senior Lecturer, School of Natural Sciences

Eva received her MSc and PhD in Medical Science in her home country, at the University of Debrecen, Hungary in 2000 after which she moved to Galway and did her postdoctoral training at the Cell Stress and Apoptosis Research laboratory, NUIG. She became a Lecturer in Biochemistry in 2011 and received an NUIG Foundation Research Lectureship position in Cancer Biology in 2016. She is the director of the M.Sc. programme in Cancer Research, co-ordinator of the Doctorate School in Integrative Genomics (EU-H2020-MSCA-COFUND) and co-PI of the Centre for Research Training in Genomics Data Science. Eva also leads the Strategic Partnership Programme, Blood Cancer Network Ireland, a nationwide research network focusing on pre-clinical research, biobanking and early-stage clinical trials in blood cancers. The research laboratory Eva leads studies how malignant cells interact with the surrounding tissue underpinning cancer drug resistance. For this research she has several international collaborations, such as the DISCOVER-H2020-RISE consortium she co-ordinates. Her research has been recognised through a variety of honours and she has published extensively in respected journals in her field.

 

Below are the bios of the Academic staff promoted in Round 1 of the Academic Promotions scheme 2020.
(Note, this is not the definitive list of applicants promoted in Round 1, only those who submitted their bios in support of this initiative).

Dr Kathryn Cormican, Senior Lecturer, School of Engineering

Kathryn Cormican leads a large multidisciplinary research team working in the area of technology innovation management. This involves the design, development, validation of novel processes and information systems to enable the creation of smarter user-cantered products and services. She is internationally recognized for her contribution to research and has won many prestigious best paper awards. Kathryn has collaborated with colleagues in leading universities (e.g. Tsinghua, Macau, and Minho) as well as senior industrial partners (e.g. Boston Scientific, Fidelity Investments and Fujitsu-Siemens) and has published extensively in high impact journals in her field.  She has secured over €2 million in research income and is currently PI on two EU funded projects. Her contribution to both research and practice has been recognized through several invited keynote addresses at international conferences and symposia. Kathryn directs an award-winning MSc programme specifically designed to equip graduates with the requisite skills needed for employment in the high-tech industry. She also received the President’s award for teaching excellence in 2018.

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Dr Sean Crosson, Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor, School of English and Creative Arts‌

Originally from Cavan, Seán was educated at NUI Galway where he completed a BA (English and Economics), M.Phil, and PhD in Irish Studies under the supervision of Professor Louis de Paor. His research interests include the relationship between film, visual media and sport, and Irish film and literature. He has authored, edited, or co-edited ten books and over forty mostly single-authored peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters to date, including his most recent monograph Gaelic Games on Film: From silent films to Hollywood hurling, horror and the emergence of Irish cinema (Cork University Press, 2019), recipient of the Dean's Award for Research (2020). He is director of Graduate Research and Teaching in the Huston School of Film & Digital Media, and as leader of the Sport & Exercise Research Group within the Moore Institute, has led a range of interdisciplinary sport-related research and teaching initiatives, including as co-director of the MA Sports Journalism and Communication programme (launched in 2020). He has served as President of the European Federation of Associations and Centres for Irish Studies (2013-2019), been Vice-Dean for Research in the College of Arts, Social Sciences and Celtic Studies (2017-2020), and is currently a member of the Classification of Films Appeal Board.

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Dr Nicholas Devaney, Senior Lecturer/Assoiate Professor, School of Physics‌

Nicholas is a native of Ballyhaunis, Co Mayo and was educated at NUI Galway (then UCG) (BSc and PhD in Experimental Physics) under the supervision of Prof. Mike Redfern. He was a Post-Doctoral Researcher in Cambridge, Paris and the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, Spain, specialising in techniques of high spatial resolution Astronomy. He was then in charge of designing and building the Adaptive Optics and other Optical systems for the GTC, the largest optical telescope in the world. He returned to Galway in 2005 to take up a lecturing post in the School of Physics. Since then, his research interests have included high resolution imaging of the retina, thermal and computational imaging and he has been charged with different projects in Space Optics by the European Space Agency. He is Co-investigator of a MAORY project, a collaboration of the Italian National Astronomical Federation, Grenoble Observatory and NUIG to build the 20 MEuro Adaptive Optics system for the European Extremely Large Telescope, which will be completed in Chile in 2025.

 

Dr Róisín Dwyer, Associate Professor, School of Medicine

Róisín is a native of Dublin and was educated at UCD (BSc) and DCU (MSc in Biological Sciences). She also completed her PhD under the mentorship of Dr Peter Smyth at UCD, focused on iodide uptake and metabolism in breast cancer. Róisín spent three years as a postdoctoral scientist in the Mayo Clinic (USA) investigating novel approaches to breast cancer imaging and therapy. Upon her return to Ireland this was further advanced through two individual fellowships at NUI Galway, during which time she also completed a MA in academic practice. Róisín leads a research team aiming to develop novel approaches for therapy of advanced breast cancer. Multidisciplinary collaboration is key to this work and she is a member of national and international research consortia, and review panels. Her research has been recognised through a variety of honours and she has published extensively in respected journals in her field. 

Professor Martin Glavin, Personal Professor, School of Engineering‌

Martin is a native of Galway, and was educated at NUI Galway, graduating with a BE in Electronic Engineering. He studied for a PhD at NUI Galway on the topic of algorithms and architectures for high speed data communications systems and joined the academic staff at NUI Galway in 2004. His research focuses on the development of signal processing algorithms for automotive, agricultural and biomedical applications. He co-founded the Connaught Automotive Research (CAR) group in 2005, and has worked closely with local and international industry for over 20 years on a number of research projects, securing funding from SFI, IRC, EI, Horizon 2020 and direct sponsorship from industry. He has been programme director for the BE and ME in Electronic & Computer Engineering since 2007, and won the President’s award for Teaching Excellence in 2009. While Martin’s academic and research achievements have been significant, he believes that the best days of his career continue to be the days when he gets an opportunity to make a positive difference in the lives of the students at NUI Galway.

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Dr Sharon Glynn, Associate Professor, School of Medicine

Sharon is a native of Dublin and was educated at DCU (BSc in Biotechnology). She earned her PhD in Biotechnology/Cancer Biology under the supervision of Prof. Martin Clynes at DCU.  She spent four years as an All-Ireland NCI Cancer Prevention Fellow at the National Institutes of Health in Maryland, USA, before moving to NUI Galway in 2010 as Director for Laboratory Research for the Prostate Cancer Institute.  Appointed as Lecturer in Pathology in 2010 in the CMNHS, she has published extensively in leading research journals on the subject of tumour biology and patient outcomes, and has received funding from Breast Cancer Now, the Irish Cancer Society and Science Foundation Ireland, including an SFI Career Development Award in 2018.

 

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Dr Caroline Heary, Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor, School of Psychology

Caroline was educated at the University College Dublin (BA, Psychology) and NUI Galway (MPsychSc in Health Psychology). She returned to UCD to undertake a PhD working with Prof. Eilis Hennessy & Prof. Hannah McGee (RCSI). She worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the Children’s Research Centre, Trinity College Dublin, before joining NUI Galway as a Lecturer in 2003. Caroline has served on the Council of the Psychological Society of Ireland and is the Irish representative on the European Paediatric Psychology Network and the International Committee of the Society of Pediatric Psychology (US). She has published in leading developmental science and health psychology journals on topics relating to youth mental health (stigma, help-seeking) and the development of positive health behaviours during childhood. Caroline is a co-founder of the Youth Academy (NUI Galway).  She is a former Undergraduate Director and is Co-Director of the PhD in Child & Youth Research

Dr Elaine Keane, Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor, School of Education‌

Elaine is a Galwegian and was educated at NUI Galway (BA, HDipEd, MEd, PhD). A former post-primary teacher of languages and CSPE, and project coordinator implementing distance learning access programmes nationally, she joined NUI Galway in 2004 as a researcher in CELT. In 2006, she commenced as Lecturer in the School of Education, where she teaches Sociology of Education and Research Methods, is Director of Doctoral Studies and former Chair of the Research Committee. Her research focuses on widening participation in higher education, social class and education, teacher diversity, and constructivist grounded theory. She has published widely in peer-reviewed journals and has led several projects as Principal Investigator (funded by IRC, HEA, HRB, ERASMUS+). Elaine has given invited lectures in universities in Ireland, England, Sweden, and the USA, serves on the Editorial Board of Teaching in Higher Education, and is lead editor on a volume about teacher diversity (Routledge, 2022).

 

Dr Colette Kelly, Senior Lecturer, School of Health Sciences

Colette is a native of Galway and was educated at NUI Galway (BSc (Hons), the University of Aberdeen (MSc) and the University of Reading (PhD).  Colette is a registered Public Health Nutritionist and worked in the food industry and with scientific charities before joining NUI Galway as a postdoctoral researcher in 2005. Colette became a lecturer in 2011 taking on the role of Director of the BA Social Care programme for 6 years and Chair of the School of Health Sciences Teaching and Learning committee.  In 2018 she became Director of the Health Promotion Research Centre and the Vice Dean for Graduate Studies in the College of Medicine Nursing and Health Sciences. Colette also represents her College on Academic Council. Colette’s research focuses on food environments and child and adolescent health. She has held leadership roles on an international study of child and adolescent health and works with the World Health Organization European Office to impact policy on adolescent health. She has published over 50 peer reviewed articles and 28 published reports. 

Dr Su-Ming Khoo, Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor, School of Political Science and Sociology‌

Su-ming read Anthropology and Geography at UCL and received her PhD in Sociology and Social Policy from the Queen’s University of Belfast, for research on democracy and development alternatives in Malaysia. She joined NUI Galway’s School of Political Science and Sociology in 1999. Su-ming is an inter and transdisciplinary scholar and chairs the Research Clusters on Environment, Development and Sustainability (Whitaker Institute) and Socio-Economic Impact (Ryan Institute) at NUI Galway. Her research, teaching and publications connect human rights, global public goods, higher education and global ethics. She is currently Principal Investigator for the BCAUSE research project: Building Collaborative Approaches to University Strategies against Exclusion in Ireland and Africa: pedagogies for quality Higher Education and inclusive global citizenship (IRC COALESCE/88 2019-22) and has recently coedited three books with Helen Kara on Researching in the Age of COVID-19, published by Policy Press (2020).

 

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Dr Gerard Molloy, Senior Lecturer, School of Psychology

Gerry is a native of Dundalk and is a first generation graduate (neither parent completed secondary school). He was educated at University of Ulster (BSc in Applied Psychology), before completing a PhD in Psychology at the University of St Andrews in Scotland under the supervision of Professor Derek and Marie Johnston. He has published extensively in leading research journals on the subject of Health Psychology and completed post-doctoral fellowships at world-leading research centres at the University of Aberdeen and University College London. He has served as Chair of the Division of Health Psychology in the Psychological Society of Ireland, been Vice-Dean for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in the College of Arts, Social Sciences and Celtic Studies here at NUI Galway, and is currently PI on an international research collaboration with colleagues from Canada, NUI Galway and the Department of Health in Ireland focusing on understanding the determinants of physical distancing during the Covid-19 pandemic. He is an elected fellow of the European Health Psychology Society and has secured €1.8 million in research income since joining NUI Galway in 2012.

 

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Professor Aisling McCluskey, Personal Professor, School of Mathematics, Statistics and Applied Maths

 Aisling is a native of Antrim and graduated with a PhD in Mathematics from Queen’s University Belfast in 1991. After a postdoctoral position in Toronto, she joined NUI Galway in 1992 introducing a new research field (analytic topology) not only to the university but to the country. She has developed strong and sustained contribution to the field through publishing in leading specialist and general journals and maintaining significant international collaboration and leadership including the founding in 1997 of the annual Galway Topology Colloquia series.
The latter series is distinguished by its foresight in placing particular focus on the training and development of graduate and early-career researchers and was an early signal of Aisling’s clear and determined commitment to a research agenda that integrates both research in mathematics and scholarship in teaching and learning. Her research-led and award-winning teaching and the completion of an MA in Academic Practice with CELT in 2011 catalysed the development of a new research dimension in undergraduate mathematics education and three co-authored undergraduate texts, published by Oxford University Press in 2014, 2018 and 2021.

Dr Charlotte McIvor, Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor, School of English and Creative Arts‌

Charlotte is a native of Philadelphia, PA and was educated at Muhlenberg College (BA in Theatre and English) before completing her PhD at University of California, Berkeley (Performance Studies).  She is the author of one monograph and multiple peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters as well as editor of multiple edited collections with the themes of her research encompassing migration, interculturalism, and contemporary performance, with an emphasis on socially engaged and collectively created grassroots work in Ireland and beyond. She is also a theatre and creative arts practitioner whose practice includes directing and creating devised theatre for educational contexts and most recently, serving as a co-lead of NUI Galway’s Active* Consent programme, for which she directs the Creative Arts and Communications Unit and produces original content like theatre, short films, animations, and social media campaigns to educate young people on sexual consent.  She has given invited keynotes and lectures internationally including at University of California, Irvine and University of Lincoln and serves on the board of arts organisations including Baboró, the international arts festival for children, and Border Crossings.  

Dr Stephen Nash, Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor, School of Engineering‌

Stephen is originally from Dundalk and was educated at Trinity College Dublin (BAI in Civil Engineering). He also completed an MSc by research in water quality modelling at TCD and subsequently worked with an environmental consultancy developing aquatic models. He took his PhD in marine modelling at NUI Galway and was appointed as lecturer in civil engineering shortly after beginning his PhD studies. He teaches in water engineering and sustainable energy and established the MSc in Water Resources Engineering in 2016.  His research expertise is marine and coastal modelling. He has secured more than €2 million in direct research income from funding agencies and industry and has published 40 journal papers. The quality of his research has been recognised by awards from Engineers Ireland, the Irish Marine Industry and the Institution of Civil Engineers (UK).

Dr Paul O'Connor, Senior Lecturer, School of Medicine‌

Paul O’Connor comes from St Andrews, Scotland. He started as a Lecturer in Primary Care in 2013 after coming to NUI Galway to be a Senior Research Methodologist in the Whitaker Institute in 2010. He is the Research Director of the Irish Centre for Applied Patient Safety and Simulation (ICAPSS), and Co-director of the Diploma and Masters in Healthcare Simulation and Patient Safety.  He was awarded a PhD in Psychology from the University of Aberdeen in 2002. Prior to coming to Ireland he was a Medical Service Corps Officer in the U.S. Navy for eight years. He served as: an Assistant Professor in the Operations Research Department at the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California; Instructor in Aviation Psychology at the Navy/Marine Corps School of Aviation Safety, Pensacola, Florida; and Research Psychologist and Experimental Diver at the Navy Experimental Diving Unit, Panama City, Florida.  His research, and teaching, are concerned with improving human performance and safety in high risk work environments. He has carried out research in a wide range of high risk industries (e.g. civil aviation, offshore oil production), and the military (e.g. aviation, Special Forces). In recent years his research and teaching has focused on the human factors that contribute to patient safety and quality of care.

 

Dr Leo Quinlan, Associate Professor, School of Medicine

Leo is a native of Cork and was educated at NUI Galway (BSc in Biochemistry), before taking a Ph.D. in Stem cell biology under the supervision of Prof. Michael Kane. His research interests focus on the interface of human physiology and medical device development with an emphasis on both bench and translational research in the areas of neurodegeneration, neuro-cardiac modeling, and ion channels in health and disease. He has published extensively in leading research journals in his field and has served as an editor and reviewer on several high impact journal. He was the Director of the BSc in Biomedical Science for many years and is currently the Vice Dean for Learning Teaching and Assessment in the College of Medicine Nursing and Health Sciences.

Dr Michelle Roche, Associate Professor, School of Medicine‌

Michelle is a Galway native and graduate of NUI Galway (BSc Physiology, MSc Neuropharmacology and PhD Neuroscience).  Following a three-year post-doctoral fellowship, she joined the discipline of Physiology as a Lecturer in 2008. Her research focuses on the understanding the neurobiological mechanisms and interrelationship between depression, autism and pain. She has collaborated with leading academics and industry partners, publishing over 60 research manuscripts to date. Michelle is dedicated to 3^rd level education, supervising and mentoring over 20 PhD/MSc research students to completion, coordinating the 3^rd yr undergraduate Physiology Science programme and four physiology modules. She holds several prominent roles on local, national and international organisations including chair of the Career Development group in School of Medicine Athena Swan SAT, Governing council member for Neuroscience Ireland and Irish Pain Society, Scientific Advisory Panel member for the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology and editorial board member for 3 international journals.

Dr Ekaterina Yahyaoui, Senior Lecturer, School of Law 

Prior to joining NUI Galway in 2012, Ekaterina taught and researched at the University of Montreal (Canada). Her research focuses on the questions of global justice, combining interdisciplinary theoretical interrogation with attention to practical implications of various theories. At the time of promotion, she was the sole author of four monographs published by leading international publishing houses and fifteen articles in international peer-reviewed journals in additional to thirty other publications. In 2016 she was the recipient of the NUI Galway President’s Award for Research Excellence. She is an active member of the European Society of International Law where she was elected to the Coordinating Committee of the Interest Group on International Legal Theory and Philosophy as well as to the role of the Chair of the said group. Ekaterina is a former director of Postgraduate Taught Programmes of the Irish Centre for Human Rights and the current Vice-Dean for Research in the College of Business, Public Policy, and Law. 

Below are the bios of the Academic staff promoted in Round 4 of the Academic Promotions scheme 2021.
(Note, this is not the definitive list of applicants promoted in Round 4, only those who submitted their bios in support of this initiative). 

Dr Manus Biggs, Senior Lecturer, School of Engineering

Manus is a native of Galway and was educated at the University of Galway (BSc in Science and MSc in Biomedical Science), before pursuing a PhD in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Glasgow under the supervision of Prof Matthew Dalby.  His highly interdisciplinary research is focused on biomaterials, the development of electrically active nanotechnologies in regenerative medicine and biodegradable biosensors.  To date, he has published over 70 peer-reviewed publications and 10 book chapters and secured over €7M in competitive research funding, from European, Irish and multinational funding bodies.  Manus has established research collaborations with institutes in the UK, Europe and the USA through securing bi-lateral funding and serves on the management board of the successful LifeTime doctoral Training Programme.

 

Professor Christine Domegan, Personal Professor, School of Business and Economics

Christine's work lies in three aspects of business and society intersection – in research, teaching and management – all focused on critical emerging issues such as sustainability, cliamte action, systems change, healthy environments and health. Christine is the Research Leader for the Applied Systems Thinking unit within the Whitaker Institute, NUI Galway, investigating Systems-thinking Social Marketing for Systemic Change and Stakeholder Engagement through a multidisciplinary lens with partners in the UK, Europe, Australia and Canada. Christine is currently leading an EU LIFE IP grant for climate action (€27 million) with national partners in relation to peatlands, people and policies.
Christine, in conjunction with Healthy Ireland, teaches Marketing Research, Sustainable Marketing and Social Marketing at undergraduate and postgraduate.. She was awarded College award for Teaching Excellence, 2020 for her collaborative and service learning work with Healthy Ireland over the past 7 years. Christine is European Editor for the Journal of Social Marketing and co-author, with Professor Gerard Hastings, OBE, of Social Marketing; Principles and Practice for Global Change 4th ed, Routledge (in press). Christine is Adjunct Professor, Griffith Business School, Brisbane, Australia and Honorary Professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences and Sport, Institute of Social Marketing (ISM), Stirling University, UK. 

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Brendan Kennelly, Senior Lecturer, School of Business and Economics

Brendan Kennelly grew up in Ballylongford, County Kerry.  He studied economics at University College Cork and the University of Maryland.  He has been lecturing at University of Galway since 1991.  He has also been a visiting professor at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania between 2002 and 2004 and again between 2010 and 2011.  His research has covered many areas in economics including public policy, economics education and, most significantly, health economics.  Within health economics, much of his work has been on mental health and health policy.  He has published several articles in peer-reviewed journals on these topics as well as contributing to numerous policy reports.  He is currently a member of a steering group that is developing a new national policy for palliative care.
He is currently the Director of the MSc Health Economics programme, a position he previously held between 2013 and 2018.  He was the Head of the Department of Economics between 2005 and 2008.  He was the Associate Head for Teaching and Learning in the School of Business and Economics between 2014 and 2017.
Brendan has organised several academic conferences during his time at NUI Galway.  He has also conceived and hosted a number of events for the general public on topical issues such as palliative care during the Covid-19 pandemic in September 2020 and reconstructing the economy of Ukraine in April 2022.

 

 

Dr Veronica McCauley, Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor, School of Education

Veronica is a native of Donegal, and was educated at the University of Limerick (BScEd Science Education, PhD Science Education).  She researched and taught for several years at the University of Limerick (Ireland), Harvard University (Cambridge, USA) and currently, here in the School of Education at the University of Galway. Veronica publishes regularly in science education, science communication & public engagement, STEM innovation (social and behavioural change at individual, educational and policy level), and related areas.  She has had substantial funding success in science education and has been awarded €3 million euro as PI/Co-applicant, across 25 projects totalling €12 million euro from a wide range of funding bodies including HEA, SFI, Enterprise Ireland, Erasmus+, and H2020.  She holds the Vice-Chair position of the University’s Ethics Committee, and was recently appointed as Director of the Centre of Pedagogy and Public Engagement Research, CoPPER.

 

Dr Patricia Scully, Associate Professor, School of Physics

Patricia is from the Peak District in the UK. She was Educated at The University of Manchester (BSc (Hons) Physics); and UMIST (MSc in Instrumentation and Analytical Science). She joined Liverpool University for an Engineering PhD in Optical Fibre Sensors. She moved to Liverpool John Moores University as a Physics Lecturer in 1990, became Reader in Photonics in 2000. Then University of Manchester as Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor.
Patricia led European Union (EU) projects in bio-process and gas monitoring, using optical sensors for bio-reactors and hydrogen fuel cells. She developed smart flooring to monitor footsteps for gait analysis, security and health checks, using tomography and artificial intelligence.
In 2018 Patricia joined the University of Galway, School of Physics. She is an SFI Funded Principal Investigator in Smart Composites, Laser Processing, Sensors and Graphene, leading a SFI Frontiers for the Future project, in Laser Functionalisation of Flexible Polymer-Carbon Composites for Medical Sensing. She collaborates with an EPSRC funded project in Advanced Fluid Engineering for Digital Manufacturing, and has graduated 24 PhD students and published over 100 refereed papers

 

Professor Jane Walsh, Personal Professor, School of Psychology
Jane is a native of Galway and completed her BA and PhD in Psychology in NUI Galway, specialising in the field of Health Psychology. She subsequently held research and lecturing posts in both Dublin and Carlow before being appointed as a lecturer in the School of Psychology in NUI Galway. Jane is an established international scholar and leader in Digital Health research. Her research is applied and explores how state-of-the-art technologies can be leveraged to improve health and wellbeing. Jane is the Director of the Mobile Technology and Health (mHealth) Research Group where she leads a programme of cross-disciplinary research with global experts in medicine, engineering, science and technology. She has achieved significant funding success with awards totalling over €25 million from Horizon 2020, SFI and HRB. Jane is regularly invited to give international keynotes speeches, including in the US and Europe. Jane is a member of the Irish Cancer Society Research Advisory Board and a former Chair of the Psychological Society of Ireland (PSI) Division of Health Psychology. Jane was recently appointed to the Royal Irish Academy Social Sciences Committee.

 

Dr Sinead Walsh, Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor, School of Medicine

Sinead is a native of Galway and completed her undergraduate medical training at University of Galway (MB BChBAO).  She completed her PhD in translational medicine in UCD, examining the origins of the myofibroblast in Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis.  Sinead is a Consultant in Respiratory and Sleep medicine at Galway University Hospital.  She is head of the final year medical programme at the University of Galway.  She is a member of the undergraduate programme board, student affairs committee, curriculum steering group, and the clinical skills and simulation committee.  She is particularly interested in preparedness for clinical practice, human factors and assessment in medical education.  She has several publications in medical education, sleep and respiratory medicine in peer-reviewed journals.  She is a member of the Irish Thoracic Society working group on Interstitial Lung Diseases.  

 

 

Below are the bios of the Academic staff promoted in Round 3 of the Academic Promotions scheme 2021.
(Note, this is not the definitive list of applicants promoted in Round 3, only those who submitted their bios in support of this initiative).

Dr Florence Abram, Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor, School of Natural Sciences

Florence is a native of Nancy, France and was educated at Ecole National Supérieure d’Agronomie et des Industries Alimentaires (MSc, France) and Wageningen University (MSc, The Netherlands). She worked as a professional Research Microbiologist (Unilever Research, Vlaardingen, The Netherlands) and then as a Computer Programmer (Unilog IT, France) before undertaking a PhD in Microbiology at NUI Galway under the supervision of Professor O’Byrne in the field of Infectious Diseases.  After spending three years as a post-doctoral researcher in Environmental Microbiology, she was appointed as a University Fellow (Teaching and Research) and then as a Lecturer at NUI Galway in 2013.  Florence has published extensively in leading research journals on the subject of Microbial Ecology.  Her teaching and research specialisms include Molecular Systems Biology and the application of Machine Learning to Microbiology.  Florence is currently leading the School’s Athena Swan Self-Assessment Team, and chairs the School’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee.

 

 

 Dr Patrick Collins, Associate Professor, School of Geogrpahy, Archaeology and Irish Studies

Pat Collins is a native of Galway and has worked as an Economic Geographer at NUI Galway since 2012.  Prior to that he was a researcher at the Whitaker Institute where his work looked at the location decisions of multinational technology companies.  More recently, Pat has turned his attention to Creative Economies and Cultural Production.  Through a  number of EU funded projects, Pat has sought to better  understand the relationship between culture, creativity and production as well as identifying the unique role played by Geography.  Pat has contributed to both of Galway's recent designations, the first as UNESCO City of Film and more recently as European Capital of Culture 2020.  As well as international conference contributions invited lectures Pat was a visiting scholar at Aarhus University in 2017 and has published over 20 internationally peer reviewed journal artiles and two books, the most recent focusing on industrial development policy in Ireland.

 

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Professor Eilís Dowd, Personal Professor, School of Medicine

Is as Carna i nGaeltacht Chonamara í Eilís ó dhúchas.  After taking her PhD in Pharmacology at the University of Edinburgh, and completing post-doctoral research at the University of Cambridge, McGill University and Cardiff University, Eilís returned home to a Lectureship in Pharmacology at NUI Galway in 2005.  In the University, Eilís balances her role as a pharmacology educator to undergraduate and postgraduate science and medical students, with her leadership of an active and dynamic Parkinson’s disease research team.  Over the years, her research has been funded by the Wellcome Trust, the Michael J Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, the European Union, Science Foundation Ireland, the Health Research Board and the Irish Research Council.  Eilís has served as President of Neuroscience Ireland, Ireland’s National Neuroscience Society, and President of NECTAR, the Network for European CNS Transplantation & Repair, while she currently sits on both the Executive Committee and the Governing Council of FENS, the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies.

   

 

 Dr Una FitzGerald, Senior Lecturer, School of Engineering

 Originally from Cork city, Una grew up in the US and Galway, and completed a BE (Ind Eng) and MSc in Biotechnology at NUIG.  Dr FitzGerald worked in the pharmaceutical sector for five years in France and the UK, before embarking on a PhD in Molecular Biology at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow.  Following a brief spell in cancer research, on joining Professor Sue Barnett’s lab in Glasgow University, she discovered her true passion – neuroscience and in particular, research on brain disorders including multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease.  Since returning to NUI Galway, Una built a track record in MS research; she is a funded investigator in CÚRAM, the SFI Centre for Research on Medical Devices and is ex-director of the Galway Neuroscience Centre.  Supported by funding from the EU and SFI, her current research focus is on developing better models of progressive phase of MS and on precision medicine for people with MS.  In 2019 she led the CÚRAM lab to be the first in Europe to gain Green Lab Certification ‘My Green Lab’ and she now chairs the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland’s working group on sustainable public sector labs.

  

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Dr Mark Foley, Senior Lecturer, School of Physics

Mark is a native of Limerick and was educated at NUI Galway (BSc in Physics), and a PhD in Physics under the supervision of Professor Philip Walton.  He has published extensively in leading research journals on the subject of radiation and medical physics and has collaborated with colleagues nationally and internationally.  He has had spells as visiting Professor at the National University of Singapore (NUS) and at the University of Victoria, and has been Vice-Dean for Strategy & Communications in the College of Science at NUI Galway.  He established the Medical Physics research cluster, the medical physics stream in the BSc in Physics (academic director 2009-2016), and is the current Academic director of the MSc in Medical Physics which was awarded North American accreditation from CAMPEP (2015 – present).  

 

 

Dr Sanjeev Gupta, Associate Professor, School of Medicine

Sanjeev is originally from New Delhi, India.  He carried out his PhD work in Gene Regulation at Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad.  He was conferred with a PhD in 2002 by the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India.  Sanjeev did his postdoctoral training with Professor Emad Alnemri, a world leader in the field of apoptosis.  He lectured at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IITM) before joining NUI Galway in 2007 and was appointed as a Lecturer in Pathology in 2010.  He has served as the Year 2 Head for the undergraduate Medical Programme at School of Medicine.  His recent activities include service as coordinator of undergraduate Research Programme at School of Medicine. Sanjeev leads a research team aiming to understand and overcome endocrine resistance in hormonal breast cancer.  He co-leads the Neutro-PREDICT team (www.nuigalway.ie/neutropredict/) currently engaged in the development of a hand-held at home device that can be used to monitor changes in neutrophil counts.  Sanjeev sits on the editorial board of a number of international journals and assessment panels of funding agencies.  He has published widely in high impact journals and has been invited to deliver keynote seminars at several national and international meetings. 

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Dr Enda Howley, Associate Professor, School of Computer Science

Enda Howley is originally from Oranmore, Co Galway, and was educated at NUI Galway where he graduated from the BSc in Information Technology (1.1) in 2004.  Enda was awarded a Government of Ireland, Embark Scholarship to undertake a PhD at NUI Galway in 2004.  Enda has published over 100 peer reviewed articles in leading international journals and conferences. After completing 4 years as an SFI Post-doctoral researcher at NUI Galway, he was appointed a member of academic staff in 2012.  In 2015 he was the national award winning Programme Director for the Grad Ireland Postgraduate Programme of the Year Award.  From 2018 to 2020, he was Programme Director of the MSc in Computer Science (Data Analytics) before taking up the role of Director of Internationalisation in the School of Computer Science.  His research interests are in the areas of Agents, Simulation and Machine Learning.

 

 

Professor Colette Kelly, Personal Professor, School of Medicine

Colette is a native of Galway and was educated at NUI Galway (BSc (Hons), the University of Aberdeen (MSc) and the University of Reading (PhD).  Colette is a registered Public Health Nutritionist and worked in the food industry and with scientific charities before joining NUI Galway in 2005.  Colette became a lecturer in 2011 and took up the role of Director of the BA Social Care programme and Chair of the School of Health Sciences Teaching and Learning committee.  In 2018 she became Director of the Health Promotion Research Centre (HPRC) and the Vice Dean for Graduate Studies in the College of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences.  Colette also represented her College on Academic Council for three years. 
Colette’s research focuses on child and adolescent health and she established the Researching Adolescent and Child Health (ReACH) group with the HPRC to advance work in this field.  Her research on nutrition focuses on adolescent food environments and food behaviours.  She has held leadership roles on an international study of child and adolescent health (www.hbsc.org) including chair of the Eating and Dieting focus group, chair of the Youth Engagement group and is a member of the co-ordinating committee for the international HBSC study.  Colette works with the World Health Organization European Office to involve youth in matters related to adolescent health and to impact adolescent health policy.

 

 

Dr Rory Monaghan, Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor, School of Engineering

Rory was raised in Galway and was educated at NUI Galway (BE in Mechanical Engineering).  He earned his MSc and PhD in Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on clean hydrogen energy systems.  He spent 2 years as a Postdoc in the Combustion Chemistry Centre at NUI Galway before joining the School of Engineering, where he is the Director of Energy Systems Engineering Programme.  Rory is the Lead Investigator in the Energy Research Centre in the Ryan Institute and a Funded Investigator in MaREI, the Science Foundation Ireland Centre for Energy, Climate and Marine Research.  He leads a team of 15 researchers who study energy transition technologies like green hydrogen, sustainable bioenergy, renewable fuels, and carbon capture utilisation and storage for hard-to-decarbonise sectors. 

 

Dr Matthew Redman, Senior Lecturer, School of Physics 

Matt joined NUI Galway in 2004 having previously worked in the University of Manchester, University College London, and the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.  His research in astrophysics examines how planetary systems can form close to explosive massive stars, and conversely how the destruction of planets at the end of a star’s life can shape the spectacular nebulae that arise.  He has been supervisory for ten current and former PhD students researching such topics.  At undergraduate level, Matt is currently Chair of the Education and Students committee for Physics.  As Director for the Centre for Astronomy, he led NUI Galway’s partnership in the I-LOFAR radio telescope constructed in Birr, in 2017.  During Matt’s 2016 – 20020 tenure as Chair of the Astronomical Society of Ireland, and following a long campaign, Ireland acceded to the European Southern Observatory, and now has direct access to the most powerful ground-based telescopes in the world.

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Dr Michael Schukat, Associate Professor, School of Computer Science

Michael is a native of the Rhineland, Germany.  He was educated at the University of Hildesheim (M.Sc. Computer Science in 1994, and Dr. rer. nat. in 2000).  Between 1997 and 2001 he held various engineering positions in the automotive and network storage industry, both in Germany and Ireland, before joining NUI Galway as a Lecturer in the Department of Information Technology in 2002.  Since 2005, Michael has held various Programme Director roles and was also Head of the IT Department from 2017 to 2018. He has been Director of Education and Students in the School of Computer Science since 2020.
Michael has been the Principal Investigator of seven, mainly Enterprise Ireland-funded projects in the areas of computer vision, cybersecurity, medication management and fibre optical networks.  His current research focus is on Artificial Intelligence and its application in computer vision, health informatics and cybersecurity.

‌‌‌‌Below are the bios of the Academic staff promoted in Round 6 of the Academic Promotions scheme 2022.
(Note, this is not the definitive list of applicants promoted in Round 6, only those who submitted their bios in support of this initiative).

 
Dr Bernadine Brady, Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor, School of Political Science and Sociology

Originally from Cavan, Bernadine is a graduate of UCD (B.SocSci. Politics and Sociology) and University of Galway (MA Community Development, PhD Sociology, PG Dip Academic Practice). Her research and teaching are focused on youth well-being, inclusion, empathy and civic behaviour.Bernadine is a widely published academic and has presented at more than 40 national and international conferences. She has built successful partnerships with policymakers and practitioners to ensure that her research has a strong impact beyond academia.Dr Brady has been awarded funding in excess of €2.3m (.5m as lead applicant) from bodies including IRC, HRB, European Commission, Foróige and DCEDIY. She is Associate Director of the UNESCO Child & Family Research Centre, Chair of the Researchers Network of Mentoring Europe, subject matter expert on a Project Advisory Group for the reform of youth work funding in Ireland and Co-chair of the School of Political Science & Sociology Athena Swan Self-Assessment Team.  

 
Dr Sarah-Anne Buckley, Associate Professor, School of History and Philosophy

Sarah-Anne grew up in Cobh, Co. Cork and received her PhD from University College Cork in 2010. A social historian of modern Ireland, she is an internationally recognised expert in the history of child welfare and gender history in Ireland. Current chair of the Irish History Students’ Association (IHSA) and past President of the Women’s History Association of Ireland (WHAI), she has authored/co-authored/edited eleven books and over twenty peer-reviewed articles/chapters. In 2020, Old Ireland in Colour, which she co-authored with Professor John Breslin, won the Journal.ie Best Irish-Published Book of the Year Award. Co-PI with Dr John Cunningham of the Tuam Oral History Project (TOHP), her projects have been widely cited in the media in recent years including articles in CNN and contributions to BBC Women’s Hour. In 2023, she was awarded an ENLIGHT Societal Impact Award representing the TOHP team and is currently an ENLIGHT Impact Ambassador for 2023/24.  

 

Professor Eoghan Clifford, Personal Professor, School of Engineering

Eoghan is a native of Limerick and received a PhD in Civil Engineering at the University of Galway in 2010. With the students’ union he initiated the award-winning CÉIM; a student-led peer-mentoring programme which makes very positive impact to the 1st year experience. He previously received the College of Science and Engineering teaching excellence award and enjoys in-class discussions with students on broader engineering, societal and environmental interactions. The award-winning research outputs from his research group include new technology, patents, commercial licenses, and a successful spin-out company – Vortech Water Solutions. He has supervised 20 PhD students to completion and continues to be inspired and challenged by the researchers in his group. He has directly secured over €20M as overall project coordinator from SFI, EI, Horizon Europe, H2020 and FP7 etc. and is a co-applicant on the NexSys partnership programme. He has been invited to speak at industry, government and academic conferences and recently co-authored a white paper published by the International Water Association. In 2017 he received the University of Galway alumni award for achievements in sport. 

 

 
Dr Pau Farràs Costa, Associate Professor, School of Biological and Chemical Sciences

Dr Pau Farràs is director of the ChemLight group and academic staff at the University of Galway since September 2015. He received his BSc in Chemical Engineering from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (Spain) in 2003 and obtained the PhD in Chemistry from the Materials Science Institute of Barcelona in 2009.  
The ChemLight group focuses on the preparation of molecules and materials capable to drive light-driven reactions for the production of fuels and chemicals. Dr Farràs has secured over €5.9M in research funding, including the coordination of EU-funded projects FLOWPHOTOCHEM, SEAFUEL, SOLAR2CHEM and ANEMEL. He is in the advisory board member of SFI-project HyLIGHT, member of Hydrogen Europe Research, the International Energy Agency Hydrogen TCP and co-director of Green Renewable Technologies Ltd. He has co-authored 57 peer-reviewed publications, 2 book chapters and 4 innovation disclosure forms.  

 

Dr Edel Doherty, Associate Professor, School of Business and Economics

Edel is a native of Donegal and was educated at the University of Galway.  Edel has been lecturing in Economics at the University of Galway since 2014 and previously she held research positions at the University of Galway and Queen’s University Belfast. She also spent time as a visiting scholar at Simon Fraser University in 2019 and the University of California, Berkeley in 2009. Edel has published extensively in both health and environmental economics, and she has been involved in multiple successful funding applications to national and international funding agencies. In Health Economics, Edel has worked on projects in the areas of obesity, chronic pain, vaccination uptake, dementia, mental health and public health. In Environmental Economics, Edel has examined public preferences in areas such as recreation, water quality and agri-environment schemes. 
Edel was the inaugural Director of the B.Comm (Global Experience) Year and since 2023, she is the Associate Head of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion for the School of Business and Economics.  Edel is a member of the Executive for the Irish Society for Women in Economics.  

 
Professor Karen Doyle, Professor in Physiology, School of Medicine

Karen is from Wicklow Town. Educated in UCD (B.Sc.) and Trinity (PhD), she worked in the pharmaceutical industry and as a lecturer in the UK before taking up a lectureship in Galway. Karen’s research investigates novel strategies to protect the brain from stroke. She studies the characteristics of the clots that cause stroke to inform medical device design and develop novel treatments. She is a member of the CURAM executive, the founder and original director of Galway Neuroscience Centre and a previous Vice-Dean of Graduate Studies in CMNHS. She is the President of Neuroscience Ireland and a member of the Governing Council of both the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies and the International Brain Research Organisation. She is a previous recipient of the President’s Award for Teaching Excellence in Galway and winner of a National Teaching Experts Award from the National Forum for Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. 

 

 
Professor Sharon Glynn, Professor in Pathology, School of Medicine‌ 

Sharon is a native of Dublin and was educated at DCU (BSc in Biotechnology). She earned her PhD in Biotechnology/Cancer Biology under the supervision of Prof. Martin Clynes at DCU. She spent four years as an All-Ireland NCI Cancer Prevention Fellow at the National Institutes of Health in Maryland, USA, before moving to University of Galway in 2010 as Director for Laboratory Research for the Prostate Cancer Institute. Appointed as Lecturer in Pathology in 2010 in the College of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences and promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2020, she has published extensively in leading research journals on the subject of tumour biology and patient outcomes, and has received funding from Breast Cancer Now, the Irish Cancer Society and Science Foundation Ireland, including an SFI Career Development Award in 2018. In 2022 Sharon received a Fulbright Scholar award and spent 8 months at Houston Methodist Hospital conducting research on breast cancer. In 2023 she was awarded €2.7 million by the EU to lead a MSCA Doctoral Network on targeting nitric oxide for the treatment of breast cancer.  

  

 

Professor Geraldine Leader, Personal Professor, School of Psychology.

Geraldine is a native of Cork and graduated from University College Cork where she obtained her B.A. (Hons) in Applied Psychology and Ph.D. in Psychology.  Geraldine is a behavioural psychologist and her expertise lies in the broad area of neurodevelopmental conditions especially autism and intellectual disability.  Her research focuses on the expansion of our understanding of the autism spectrum and thereby enhancing the life experience and potential of individuals with autism and their families.  She studies autism across the lifespan with an emphasis on increasing the quality of life of children, adolescents, and adults through evidence-based research.  She also conducts interdisciplinary research and has established a range of important research partnerships and collaborators, nationally and internationally.  She has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles in the leading journals in her field.  At the University of Galway, she is the Director of the Irish Centre for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Research (ICAN) which is located at the Institute for Lifecourse and Society (ILAS).  Geraldine is a Principal Investigator in a EU/US led project called GEMMA (Genome, Environment, Microbiome, and Metabolome in Autism) which was awarded €14.2m funding by the EU.  She also leads an interdisciplinary COST network of 135 researchers from 43 countries dedicated to increasing access to education and employment for people with disability using Assistive Technology (AT).

   

 
Professor Rory Monaghan, Professor in Energy Systems Engineering, School of Engineering

Rory was raised in Galway and was educated at University of Galway (BE in Mechanical Engineering).He earned his MSc and PhD in Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for research on clean hydrogen energy systems.He spent 2 years as a Postdoc in the Combustion Chemistry Centre at University of Galway before joining the School of Engineering, where he is the Head of the Discipline of Mechanical Engineering and the Director of Energy Systems Engineering Programme.Rory is the Lead Investigator in the Energy Research Centre in the Ryan Institute and a Funded Investigator in MaREI, the Science Foundation Ireland Centre for Energy, Climate and Marine Research.He leads a research team that studies energy transition technologies like green hydrogen, sustainable bioenergy, renewable fuels, and carbon capture utilisation and storage for hard-to-decarbonise sectors. 

 

 
Dr Olivia McDermott, Associate Professor, School of Biological and Chemical Sciences

Olivia is a native of Castlegar in Galway and completed her BSc in Microbiology and an MSc in Quality and Reliability at the University of Galway. She holds an MBA from the University of Limerick and a D. Prof in Work-Based Learning from the University of Middlesex. She completed her post-doctoral work at the University of Limerick. Prior to joining the University of Galway, she held several Senior Management positions in the Computer and Medical Device manufacturing industries and worked as a self-employed Operational Excellence consultant.  
Olivia is the course co-director associated with the Irish Medtech Association’s Medical Technology Regulatory Affairs Masters, run by the University of Galway, in conjunction with ATU Sligo. She manages a large team of industry-based researchers focused on Operational Excellence and Regulatory Affairs. She has published and co-authored over 100 peer-reviewed journal articles and conference papers, and she hosted the European Lean Educators Conference at the University of Galway in 2022. She has received several awards for her published work, and she is on the Editorial Advisory Board of the International Journal of Lean Six Sigma (IJLSS) and is on the Editorial Review Board of the TQM journal.  

 

 
Professor Paul O’Connor, Personal Professor, School of Medicine

Dr Paul O’Connor is a human factors psychologist and Personal Professor in the School of Medicine. He is the Research Director of the Irish Centre for Applied Patient Safety and Simulation, and Co-Director of the Diploma and Masters in Healthcare Simulation and Patient Safety. His research, and teaching, are concerned with improving human performance and safety in high-risk work environments. He has carried out research in a wide range of high-risk industries (e.g., civil aviation, offshore oil production), and the military (e.g., aviation, special forces). In recent years his research and teaching has focused on the human factors that contribute to patient safety and quality of care and the application of healthcare simulation. He has received more than six million euro of funding as a Principal/Co-Principal investigator and authored more than 180 publications. 

 

 
Dr Lindsay Reid, Senior Lecturer, School of English and Creative Arts

Lindsay was educated in Canada at the University of King’s College (BA, Classics and Early Modern Studies) and the University of Toronto (MA, Comparative Literature; PhD, English and Book History). She is the author of two monographs, Ovidian Bibliofictions and the Tudor Book (2014) and Shakespeare's Ovid and the Spectre of the Medieval (2018), as well as numerous articles and book chapters. In 2022, Lindsay worked with Cúirt Festival and UK-based literary organisation Speaking Volumes to create the pamphlet publication Breaking Ground Ireland. At present, she is centrally involved with 'Re-mediating the Early Book: Pasts and Futures' (REBPAF), an MSCA Doctoral Network coordinated by the University of Galway. Within the university, she is Vice-Dean for Graduate Studies in the College of Arts, Social Sciences and Celtic Studies; beyond the university, she is a Subject Advisor for the Irish Teaching Council and Chair of the Renaissance Society of America’s webinars committee. 

 

 
Dr Andrew Simpkin, Senior Lecturer, School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences

Andrew was born in Wigan and grew up in Collinstown, Westmeath. Andrew studied mathematics in Dublin before completing a PhD in Statistics with Prof. John Newell at the University of Galway. Andrew spent six years as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bristol, Columbia University, and the SFI Insight Centre for Data Analytics before returning to the School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences in Galway in 2018. He enjoys delivering a range of modules to engage with students from all Colleges in the University of Galway. Andrew has developed methods for modelling high-dimensional data using functional data analysis, and models for epigenetic change in genomics. He holds honorary positions at Massey University, the University of Queensland, and the University of Bristol. He is indebted to his national and international collaborators across many fields. 

 

 

 

Below are the bios of the Academic staff promoted in Round 5 of the Academic Promotions scheme 2022.
(Note, this is not the definitive list of applicants promoted in Round 5, only those who submitted their bios in support of this initiative).

 

Dr Cornelia Connolly, Associate Professor, School of Education

In addition to a Ph.D. in pedagogical innovation Cornelia holds a B.Eng. (Hons) and M.Eng. (Hons) in Computer Engineering from the University of Limerick and a MBA from the University of Galway. A native of Monaghan, Cornelia is an established international scholar and leader in computer science education and learning engineering. Her teaching and research combines industry-inspired practices with computing and digital technologies to create engaging learning experiences, understand human learning and knowledge transfer to facilitate behavioural change in a variety of contexts. Cornelia was Programme Director (Education) for the undergraduate concurrent specialist teacher education programmes, led the development of the BA Education (Mathematical Studies and Computer Science) programme and is Chair of the Research Committee at the School of Education. Cornelia has been invited to give keynote lectures in universities in the USA and Europe, and has achieved significant funding success with awards from Horizon 2020, SFI and industry. She has published extensively in leading international journals and is a member of the ACM Transactions on Computing Education and International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology editorial boards.

 

 

Professor Kathryn Cormican, Professor in Systems Engineering, School of Engineering

Kathryn Cormican is Director of the Enterprise Systems Research Centre in the School of Engineering and a member of Lero - the Irish Software Research Centre. She leads a large multidisciplinary research team working in the area of technology innovation management. She is internationally recognised for her contribution to research and has won many prestigious best-paper awards. She has been a keynote speaker at several international conferences and has published extensively in high-impact journals in her field.  She has secured over €2.5 million in research income and is currently PI on three EU-funded projects. Kathryn was awarded Female Entrepreneurial Leader of the Year in 2022 by the Accreditation Council for Entrepreneurial and Engaged Universities.

 

 

Professor John Cullinan, Professor in Economics, School of Business and Economics

John is a native of Waterford and studied at University College Dublin, London School of Economics, and University of Galway. He was previously a Visiting Scholar at University of California, Berkeley and a Visiting Researcher at University of Wisconsin-Madison, and has held lecturing positions at University of Limerick, Maynooth University, and University College Dublin. John’s research focuses on the causes and consequences of socioeconomic and geographic inequalities in the areas of health, disability, and education and he has published extensively on these topics. His research-led teaching approach focuses on the application of econometric methods to inform public policy and address societal challenges. John has won President’s Awards for Excellence in Teaching, Excellence in Research, and Excellence in Research Supervision and he is Founder and Director of the Centre for Economic Research on Inclusivity and Sustainability (CERIS). He was previously Vice Dean for Research and Vice Dean for Graduate Studies

 

 

Dr Allyn Fives, Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor, School of Political Science and Sociology

Allyn joined the School of Political Science and Sociology as a Lecturer in 2013. He received a BA from the University of Galway and an MA from the University of Essex. His PhD was supervised by Russell Keat at the University of Edinburgh. Allyn’s research is in the area of political theory, with particular interest in moral conflict. He is the sole author of four monographs (published by Palgrave and Manchester University Press) and author of 28 articles in international peer-reviewed journals. He was also lead researcher on a number of funded research studies. Allyn was Chair of the University’s Research Ethics Committee for five years; was joint director of the PhD in Child and Youth Research for 10 years; was First Year coordinator (Political Science and Sociology) for three years; is currently Chair of the School’s Teaching and Learning Committee and Programme Director of the MA in Politics and Sociology.

 

 

 

Dr Aaron Golden, Associate Professor, School of Natural Sciences

Aaron was born in London and grew up in Co. Wicklow and Dublin. He completed a BA in Natural Sciences (Experimental Physics) at Trinity College Dublin, an MSc in Computational Science from the Queens University of Belfast and a PhD in Astrophysics from the University of Galway. Aaron joined the University's newly formed Information Technology Centre in 1999, moved to the School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences in 2009, and in 2022 to the School of Natural Sciences. Aaron is an internationally recognised expert in Transient Astronomy specifically applied to the study of stellar/sub-stellar magnetospheres, with minor planet 11451 named 'Aarongolden' by the International Astronomical Union in acknowledgement of this work. He is regularly awarded peer-reviewed observatory time on telescopes located in Chile, Hawaii, the continental United States, India, South Africa, and several in earth orbit. He has previously worked as a consultant to NASA's Planetary Science Division. Aaron is actively involved in several University of Galway astronomy linked consortia including the I-LOFAR radiotelescope located in Birr, Co. Offaly, the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope on the Big Island of Hawaii, and in the development of the MORFEO imaging instrument, a critical component of the European Southern Observatory's Extremely Large Telescope currently under construction in Chile.

 

 

Professor Anthony Hall, Personal Professor, School of Education

Tony is a leading international scholar in educational design, innovation and technology. He is Director of Educational Design Research for Designing Futures (HEA, €7.57m (2020-2025); and a Principal Investigator of the i2i (Idea to Impact) Project (European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT)/Horizon Europe, €1.2m (2021-2023).
Tony is University of Galway’s first General Editor of Ireland’s principal educational research journal, Irish Educational Studies, published internationally by Routledge/Taylor & Francis, leading the journal to its strongest position in its 41-year history. He also serves on the editorial boards of several premier international journals, including Journal of Computer-Assisted Learning; and in 2022 was appointed International Academic Advisor for Routledge Open Research. Since 2007, Tony has been an invited expert on educational design, technology, and research e-infrastructures for the European Commission; and advises the Teaching Council on educational research. He received a Teaching Excellence Award in 2021, and was nominated again in 2022. 

 

 

 

Professor Gerard Molloy, Personal Professor, School of Psychology

Gerry is a native of Dundalk and is a first-generation graduate (neither parent completed secondary school). He was an undergraduate in Psychology at Ulster University and completed a PhD in Psychology at the University of St Andrews. He completed post-doctoral fellowships at the University of Aberdeen and University College London. Since joining the University of Galway he has led a major programme of research on the behavioural science of medication use. He has served as Chair of the Division of Health Psychology in the Psychological Society of Ireland and also served as an inaugural College Vice-Dean for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion. He is an elected fellow of the European Health Psychology Society and received a President’s Research Excellence Award in 2018. In 2021 he was appointed as an Associate Editor of Health Psychology Review. In 2022 he secured major funding for a 4-year programme of research on the community use of antibiotics.

 

 

Dr Denis O’Hora, Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor, School of Psychology

Originally from Cork, Denis attended University College Cork (BA in Applied Psychology) and Maynooth University (PhD in Psychology; supervisor: Professor Dermot Barnes-Holmes). He lectured in London and Ulster University, before joining University of Galway as Lecturer in Psychology in 2007. He has published extensively on human learning and decision making. His work addresses fundamental cognitive and motivational processes and their expression in neural and behavioural measures. He has also applied insights about human decision making to societal issues such a workplace safety and pro-environmental behaviour. He is an active proponent of Open Science, providing numerous workshops in this area. At University of Galway, he founded and directs the first masters in Consumer Psychology in Ireland and is the current director of the university’s Vertically Integrated Projects programme. He participates in the International Energy Agency Wind Technical Collaboration Programme Task 39 Quiet wind turbine technology and is a member of the Farm Safety Partnership Advisory Committee (FSPAC), an Advisory Committee to the Health and Safety Authority. He has given invited lectures in several universities, including Cornell, Salzburg, and the Humboldt University in Berlin.

   

Below are the bios of the Academic staff promoted in Round 8 of the Academic Promotions scheme 2023.
(Note, this is not the definitive list of applicants promoted in Round 8, only those who submitted their bios in support of this initiative).

Professor Molly Byrne, Established Professor, School of Psychology 

Molly Byrne is a Health Psychologist and Professor in the School of Psychology.  She is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin (BA Hons: 1994) and the University of Galway (MPsychSc: 1998; PhD: 2004).  She directs the Health Behaviour Change Research Group, which aims to improve population health by using an evidence-based behavioural science approach to health behaviour interventions.  She has published widely in the areas of chronic disease prevention and health behaviour change interventions.   She directs a Collaborative Doctoral Programme in Chronic Disease Prevention, as well as a Master’s Programme in Health Psychology.  She is the Galway lead for the SPHeRE Doctoral Programme in Population health, Policy and Health-services Research.   Molly was an invited expert member of the Communications and Behaviour Change Advisory Group to the National Public Health Emergency Team for COVID-19 (NPHET). She has also contributed to guidelines on the management of obesity, vaccination and cardiovascular disease.    

 

Professor Cornelia Connolly, Professor in, School of Education 

A native of Monaghan, Cornelia’s teaching, grant capture and publication record draws from the related disciplines of computing and education.  Cornelia holds Bachelor and Masters degrees in Computer Engineering, as well as a Masters in Business Administration (MBA). She earned her PhD in pedagogical innovation from the University of Limerick under the supervision of Professor Eamonn Murphy and Professor Sarah Moore. Cornelia received the President’s Award for Teaching Excellence (2023), the University Team Award for Research (2022), and the Lero Director Prize for Research (2021).  She has received competitive national and international funding, attracting over €4m in direct research funding to the University as PI and has been involved in national and European project consortia that collectively total over €21m. Cornelia has a research-led teaching approach and has been invited to give keynote lectures in universities in Hong Kong, the USA and Europe.  Cornelia was a Visiting Fellow at Yale University.   

 

Dr John Cunningham, Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor, School of History and Philosophy 

John Cunningham worked in Special Needs education before undertaking postgraduate research in History at the University of Galway (M.A., 1993; Ph.D., 2002) and becoming a full-time Lecturer in History at the university in 2004.  With an interest in labour and social history, he has been an editor of Saothar: Journal of Irish Labour History, and has published four monographs as well as co-editing six essay collections.  His responsibilities at the university included directing the M.A. History programme, while he has mentored extensively at post-graduate and post-doctoral level.  In disseminating his research, he has worked closely with state, trade union, civic and community bodies.  He was a founder of the Irish Centre for the Histories of Labour and Class in 2013. 

 

Professor Maeve Duffy, Professor in, School of Engineering 

Maeve is originally from Bundoran, Co. Donegal.  She completed the BE in Electronic Engineering at University of Galway, followed by a PhD on modelling of planar magnetic components under the supervision of Professor Ger Hurley.  She spent over 4 years at the Tyndall National Institute in Cork, where she collaborated on several European and industry funded projects on microfabricated magnetic components.  She returned to a lecturing position in University of Galway in 2001 and has continued to develop her research in power electronics and biomedical applications, most of which is industry focused, in the Power Electronics Research Centre.  She is Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics and publishes widely in high impact journals and international conferences.  She has been programme director for the BE and ME in Electrical & Electronic Engineering since 2007.  As Director for EDI in the School of Engineering, Maeve led the School's successful application for an Athena Swan Silver Award in 2022, the first Silver Award in for an Engineering School in Ireland (Republic).  She leads the electrical design team of the Galway Energy Efficient Car (the GEEC) student project, which has had continued success at an annual international energy efficiency competition. 

 

Professor Nata Duvvury, Established Professor, School of Political Science and Sociology 

Nata Duvvury Established Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies and Director, Centre for Global Women’s Studies, is global expert in international development.  A feminist economist, she is a recognised leader in furthering feminist approaches using quantitative methods for policy development addressing gender-based violence.  She has led large multi-country research teams undertaking seminal research on the economic and social impacts of violence against women.  This research has gained international recognition, and she received a President’s Award for Research Impact in 2020.  She has a strong record of publications in high-impact journals as well as highly cited research reports.  She has provided invaluable leadership to addressing the issues of gender equality, and EDI issues more broadly, in the University and serves as an advisor to other Irish institutions.  She directs the MA Gender, Globalisation and Rights and is Associate Editor of Feminist Economics.  

 

Professor Frances Fahy, Established Professor, School of Geography, Archaeology and Irish Studies 

Professor Frances Fahy is the Director of the Ryan Institute, where she leads several international research teams on sustainable consumption and energy citizenship research. Frances is a leading environmental geographer, and she has published more than 100 publications including four books (Methods of Sustainability Research in the Social Sciences published by Sage, 2013, Challenging Consumption Routledge, 2014, Energy Demand Challenges in Europe Palgrave 2019 and Energy Citizenship across Europe, 2025).  Professor Fahy has coordinated > 20 funded research projects and obtained competitive large research funding including funding from Horizon Europe, H2020, JPI-Climate, Interreg, NESC and the EPA. Professor Fahy has supervised 10 PhD students to completion, 11 Postdoctoral Research Fellows, and numerous Master's students.  Many of her graduates now hold key roles in policy and academia.  Professor Fahy has won numerous awards for her research as well as many aspects of academic life including:  President’s Awards for Research Excellence (2017), Societal Impact (2017), Teaching Excellence (Team Award 2020), and the Irish Research Council’s National Ally Award for Mentoring and Supervision (2023).  A Fulbright Scholar, Frances previously served as Head of Geography at University of Galway and is the past President of the Geographical Society of Ireland.  

 

Professor David Finn, Established Professor, School of Medicine 

Dave is from Ballycahill, Co. Tipperary and was educated at University of Galway (BSc Biotechnology; 1997) and University of Bristol (PhD in Neuroscience; 2001). After a postdoc at University of Nottingham, he was appointed Lecturer (Below-the-Bar) in Physiology at University of Galway (2004), then Lecturer (Above-the-Bar) in Pharmacology (2006), and promoted to Personal Professor of Pharmacology and Therapeutics (2014).  His research aims to advance understanding of the neurobiology of pain and co-morbid anxiety and depression.  Dave has held numerous leadership roles internally (founding Co-Director of the Centre for Pain Research, Director of the Galway Neuroscience Centre, Head of Discipline of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, ACREC Chair) and externally (President of the International Cannabinoid Research Society, and Irish Pain Society; European Pain Federation Councillor).  He has contributed to international task forces on cannabinoids and pain, translational pain research, and a pain research strategy for Europe, and spoken in Dáil Éireann.  Dave has published >190 full papers/book chapters, given >75 invited talks (incl. keynotes/plenaries), editorial board member of 5 journals, and supervised/co-supervised 24 wonderful PhD students and 13 fantastic postdocs.  

 

Dr Sinéad Hynes, Senior Lecturer, School of Health Sciences 

Sinéad Hynes began her third level education and love for research at the University of Galway [BSc (Hons) Occupational Therapy].  She completed her PhD at the University of Cambridge based at the MRC-Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, in 2013.  From there she worked in the NHS as an occupational therapist and trial manager before moving to Canada for a postdoc funded by the US MS Society.  Following this, she took up her current lecturing post at the University of Galway in 2015.   Her research career has been exclusively in patient-focused, rehabilitation and symptom management, particularly with people with multiple sclerosis.  Public and patient involvement (PPI) is the cornerstone of her research, and she is constantly challenged by the PPI contributors and patients she works with.  She has published extensively in leading research journals and holds/has held many competitive research grants.  She leads a research group focused on improving the daily function and quality of life of people with neurological conditions.  She is a Research Associate of Evidence Synthesis Ireland, a member of the Galway Neuroscience Centre and an MS Ireland representative on The European Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis (ECTRIMS) Council.  She is Co-Chair of the ECTRIMS Young Healthcare Professionals and Researchers Committee and has impacted positively early career researchers through this work.   She is thankful to those who have helped and supported her in her career to date and is happy to be contacted to provide support to others within the University.   

  

Professor Edward Jones, Established Professor, School of Engineering 

Edward Jones holds BE (First Class Honours) and PhD degrees in Electronic Engineering from the University of Galway.  He has served as Head of the School of Engineering at University of Galway, as well as Vice-Dean for Performance, Planning and Strategy in the College of Engineering & Informatics.  He has several years of industrial experience in senior R&D positions in start-up and multinational companies, including Toucan Technology, PMC-Sierra, Innovada and Duolog Technologies.  His research interests are in signal processing and machine learning for a range of applications including connected and autonomous vehicles, and bio-signal processing.  He has co-authored more than 110 peer-reviewed journal papers and has supervised 30 PhD students to completion as Primary or Co-supervisor.  He has been awarded research funding from a variety of public and private sources, including Taighde Éireann - Research Ireland, Enterprise Ireland, the EU Horizon 2020 programme, and several Irish and multi-national companies.  He is joint Director of the Connaught Automotive Research (CAR) Group at University of Galway, and is a Co-PI in Lero, the Research Ireland Centre for Software.  He was a Visiting Researcher in the Department of Electrical Engineering, Columbia University, New York, USA, and was a Visiting Fellow in the School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.  He is a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of the Institution of Engineers of Ireland.  

 

Dr Pádraic Moran, Senior Lecturer, School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures 

Pádraic is a native of Galway and was educated at University College, Cork and University of Galway.  He held research positions at the University of Cambridge and University of Galway, before joining University of Galway as Lecturer in Classics in 2012.  He researches texts and manuscripts from western Europe between the fourth to ninth centuries AD, focusing on Latin, Old Irish and Greek.  He has a special interest in Ireland’s role in preserving and cultivating Classical and Christian learning, and in how this inheritance profoundly shaped early Irish society, language and culture.  He has a special interest in digital resources and Digital Humanities approaches to cultural heritage. From 2014 to 2023, he was Associate Director of the Moore Institute.  He is a co-editor of Peritia: Journal of the Medieval Academy of Ireland.  

 

Dr Brian Paul Tobin, Associate Professor, School of Law 

Brian is a native of Waterford and was educated at Trinity College Dublin (LL.B., LL.M, PhD).  In 2024, his book, The Legal Recognition of Same-Sex Relationships: Emerging Families in Ireland and Beyond (Oxford: Hart, 2023) was shortlisted for the Society of Legal Scholars’ Margaret Brazier Prize for Outstanding Scholarship.  He has oft-been invited to provide expert written and oral evidence to Oireachtas committees, and to contribute to international law reform efforts in the areas of family and child law.  In 2025, he was named ‘Legal Educator of the Year’ at the LEAP Irish Law Awards.  He has served as Deputy Head at the School of Law, and as a member of the University’s Research Ethics Committee.  He has secured research funding from, among others, the Department of Justice, Home Affairs and Migration, and he has a significant presence in print and broadcast media.   

 

Below are the bios of the Academic staff promoted in Round 7 of the Academic Promotions scheme 2023.
(Note, this is not the definitive list of applicants promoted in Round 7, only those who submitted their bios in support of this initiative).

 

Professor Kathryn Cormican, Personal Professor, School of Engineering 

Kathryn Cormican is a Professor of Systems Engineering and Director of the Enterprise Research Centre in the School of Engineering and a funded investigator in Lero – The Irish Software Research Centre.  She leads a large multidisciplinary research team.  Her work focuses on the design, development, and validation of novel processes and information systems to enable smarter user-centred solutions.  She is currently leading three EU-funded projects.  She is internationally recognised for her contribution to research and has won many prestigious best-paper awards including the European Academy of Management best paper award in 2023.  She has delivered several keynote addresses at international conferences and has published extensively in high-impact journals in her field.  Kathryn directs an award-winning MSc programme specifically designed to equip graduates with the requisite skills needed for employment in the high-tech industry.  She received the President’s Award for teaching excellence in 2018 and was awarded Female Entrepreneurial Leader of the Year in 2022 by the Accreditation Council for Entrepreneurial and Engaged Universities. 

 

 

Dr Eimear Dolan Associate Professor, School of Engineering 

Eimear received her undergraduate and PhD degrees from the University of Galway (Biomedical Engineering) and worked as a postdoctoral researcher in Trinity College Dublin, the Royal College of Surgeons Ireland, University of Galway and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  Eimear is a Mayo native and started her research group in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Galway in 2018.  Her research focuses on fundamental and translational research in innovative medical implants.  She has received competitive national and international funding; her research has been recognised through prestigious awards and she has published extensively in respected journals in her field.  She is passionate to translate her research findings to the clinic and is an academic co-founder of a University of Galway pipeline spin-out company.  She is a mentor for the BioInnovate Program and teaches courses on medical device innovation.  

 

 

Dr Catherine Emerson, Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor, School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures 
Catherine Emerson grew up in Bristol, an experience she has written about.  She studied French and History at Oxford and wrote a doctoral dissertation on a fifteenth-century francophone mémoire at Hull in England. She then taught at Trinity, Dublin, before coming to Galway, where she chaired the Examinations Appeals Committee and the local branch of the Irish Federation of University Teachers, as well as serving a term as Vice-Dean for Postgraduates in the College of Arts.  Her research mainly focusses on the French literature of the fifteenth century and one of her two monographs is on this subject.  The other is on Manneken Pis, a statue of a urinating child, reflecting her interest in visual and cultural artifacts.  She currently leads the MSCA Doctoral Network 'Re-mediating the Early Book: Pasts and Futures' (REBPAF), involving six universities. She co-ordinates the MA Medieval and Antiquity and is co-editor of the journal French Studies. 

 

 

Dr Yvonne Finn, Associate Professor, School of Medicine 

Hailing from Co Mayo, Yvonne was educated at University of Galway qualifying with MB BCh BAO, intercalated BSc (Pharmacology), MSc (Health Sciences) and MD (Medicine). Yvonne’s teaching focusses on clinical and communication skills (undergraduate), and medical education, preventive cardiology and cultural awareness in research processes (postgraduate).  She is a previous recipient of the President’s Award for Teaching Excellence. In her role as CMNHS VD internationalization, Yvonne set up a partnership with Kenyatta University, Brighter Communities Worldwide (NGO) and a Ministry of Health in Kenya.  She currently chairs a special interest group of the European Association for Communication in Healthcare and sits on the educational advisory committee of the National Institute for Prevention and Cardiovascular Health.  Yvonne’s research interests are in communication skills, health literacy and new technologies, such as virtual reality (VR), for health profession education.  She has published widely in peer-reviewed journals and has authored two books.  She has been an invited speaker at more than 30 professional and educational conferences, both nationally and internationally.  Yvonne has been awarded research funding from HRB, ERASMUS+ and Wellcome Trust.   

 

 

Dr Miriam Haughton, Associate Professor, School of English, Media, and Creative Arts 

Raised in both Dublin and Galway, Miriam completed her BA in Drama, Cultural and Media Studies at Queen’s University Belfast (2004), MA in Advanced Stage and Screen Practice at Queen Margaret University Edinburgh (2006), and PhD in Drama Studies at University College Dublin (2013).  Miriam was a postdoctoral researcher on the AHRC Creative Knowledge Exchange team at the University of Ulster with Queen’s University Belfast (2013-4), joining the University of Galway in August 2014.  Miriam’s monographs include The Theatre of Louise Lowe (CUP Elements 2024) and Staging Trauma (Palgrave 2018). She is co-editor of Theatre, Performance and Commemoration (Methuen 2023), Legacies of the Magdalen Laundries (Manchester UP 2021), and Radical Contemporary Theatre Practices by Women in Ireland (Carysfort Press 2015).  Miriam is PI of the IRC Laureate award ‘The Price of Performance’ (2023-25), and President of the Irish Society for Theatre Research (2023-2027).  

 

 

Dr Declan McKernan, Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor, School of Medicine 

Declan is a native of Limerick and was educated at the University of Limerick (BSc in Industrial Biochemistry) and University College Cork (PhD in Biochemistry).  He worked as a post-doctoral researcher in Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre in UCC before becoming a lecturer in Galway.  He has published in leading research journals and books on the role and regulation of inflammation in neurodegenerative and psychiatric disease and leads an active research team.  He is on the editorial board of international journals and has edited a number of special issues.  He is actively involved in undergraduate and postgraduate teaching in pharmacology and toxicology.  He has a diploma (PGDip) in higher education and has been course director for two taught MSc programmes.  He is also on the chemical safety committee of the food safety authority of Ireland (FSAI) and co-authored a number of reports. 

 

Professor Derek Morris, Personal Professor, School of Biological and Chemical Sciences 

Derek is from Ennis, Co. Clare and was educated at University of Galway (BSc in Biotechnology; 1998) and Cardiff University (PhD in Molecular Genetics; 2001).  His research career has focused on neuropsychiatric genetics.  His first postdoctoral position was at Trinity College Dublin where he was awarded a Health Research Board Postdoctoral Career Development Research Fellowship (2003) and was appointed Lecturer in Molecular Psychiatry (2006). Using Science Foundation Ireland funding, he set up TrinSeq, the first next-generation DNA sequencing lab in Ireland (2008).  In 2013, Derek moved to University of Galway as Lecturer in Biomedical Science and a PI in the Centre for Neuroimaging, Cognition and Genomics (NICOG).  He has >250 publications including 35 as first/senior author and he has secured >€4M in funding for his group.  He is involved in international consortia undertaking genetic studies of psychiatric disorders that have been published in Nature, Science and Cell. Derek is a former President of the Irish Society of Human Genetics (2014-16) and a former Director of the Galway Neuroscience Centre (2021-22).  He is the first Programme Director for the BSc in Genetics and Genomics at University of Galway, which he helped establish as a new course in 2020.  

 

 

Dr Kevin O’Sullivan, Associate Professor, School of History and Philosophy 

Kevin grew up in Co. Louth and is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin (BA, 2004; PhD, 2008).  He has written two books on the theme of global justice: Ireland, Africa and the End of Empire (Manchester University Press, 2012) and The NGO Moment: The Globalisation of Compassion from Biafra to Live Aid (Cambridge University Press, 2021).  He is currently working on a new project on the history of ‘sustainability’: the social, political, cultural, and economic factors that governed how societies imagined that concept and their pursuit of it. Before coming to Galway, Kevin worked at UCD and University of Birmingham, and he has been a visiting fellow at the European University Institute and Carleton University.  Kevin’s work has consistently stressed the uses of history to inform present-day policies, including several collaborative projects with humanitarian NGOs.  Since 2020, he has also been an editor of the RIA’s Documents on Irish Foreign Policy project. 

 

 

Dr Sam Redfern, Senior Lecturer, School of Computer Science 

Sam was born in Bristol, UK and grew up in Bristol and Galway.  He was educated at University of Galway (BA English & Archaeology, MSc Applied Computing, and PhD Applied Computing- photogrammetry & image processing for archaeological applications). He has been lecturing in IT/Computer Science in Galway since 1996 and has published academically in archaeological computing, image processing, graphics & multimedia, virtual reality, eLearning, and computer game technology.  He makes games for ‘serious’ purposes (eLearning, therapy, training) and for purely entertainment purposes.  His games have had more than 7 million downloads.  

 

 

Professor Ted Vaughan, Professor in, School of Engineering 

Ted is a native of Cork and was awarded a BE (2007) and PhD (2011) in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Limerick.  Prior to his faculty appointment, he worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher (2011-2015) in the School of Engineering at the University of Galway and a Visiting Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of Notre Dame.  Currently, his research group focusses on the development of multiscale modelling approaches to enhance our understanding of tissue biomechanics, biomaterials and medical implants in both cardiovascular and orthopaedic fields.  He has authored more than 75 publications in peer-reviewed journals across these areas.  In 2018, he was awarded Starter Grants from both the European Research Council and Irish Research Council.  He is also project coordinator of the BIOMEND Marie-Curie Doctoral Network, a European Industrial Doctorate programme that is developing next-generation bioresorbable material technologies for cardiovascular implants.  He works collaboratively with a range of national and international academic, industrial and clinical partners in the area medical implant development through his expertise in experimental and computational biomechanics.   

Below are the bios of some of the Academic staff promoted in Round 10 of the Academic Promotions scheme 2024. 
(Note, this is not the definitive list of applicants promoted in Round 10, only those who submitted their bios in support of this initiative).

 

Dr Cynthia Coleman, Associate Professor, School of Medicine 

Cynthia Coleman is an Associate Professor in the School of Medicine.  She leads a multidisciplinary research programme investigating type 2 diabetes mellitus-induced osteopathy.  Her domestically and internationally funded work aims to identify RNA therapies to protect and restore osteoprogenitor health and function in people living with diabetes. Before joining the University, Cynthia was a Scientist at Johnson & Johnson Biologics (USA) and a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institutes of Health (USA), where her work advanced cartilage repair strategies.  Her doctoral studies at Thomas Jefferson University (USA) elaborated our fundamental understanding of embryonic cartilage development. Cynthia is an active contributor to research committees, ethics committees and postgraduate education committees internally.  Externally, she contributes to professional societies and engages in research collaborations with local enterprise partners.  Cynthia directs a MSc programme in Cellular Manufacturing and Therapy specifically designed to equip graduates with a fundamental knowledge of cellular manufacturing, the scientific underpinning of cellular therapy and professional skills to succeed in academic or industrial careers.  The course was awarded Best New Postgraduate Programme in 2020 by Grad Ireland. 

 

Dr Sara Farrona, Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor, School of Biological and Chemical Sciences 
 
Sara is from Spain where she completed her BSc in Biology at the University of Extremadura in 1999.  She carried out her PhD research at the Institute of Photosynthesis and Plant Biology (CSIC) and earned her PhD in Biology from the University of Seville in 2004.  She subsequently worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research and at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf in Germany, before joining the University in 2015 as a Lecturer and Principal Investigator of the Plant Developmental Epigenetics Laboratory.  Her research focuses on understanding how plant development is regulated by chromatin and epigenetic mechanisms.  She has produced pioneering work in this field, published in high-impact journals such as Nature Genetics, Nature Communications, and The Plant Cell.  She participates in EU-funded international consortia, and her laboratory also receives support from Science Foundation Ireland. Within the School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Sara serves as Director of the Plant and AgriBiosciences Pathway of the BSc of Science.  She is also committed to promoting sustainability and environmentally responsible agricultural practices through outreach activities with young people 

 

Professor Aaron Golden, Professor in, School of Natural Sciences

Born in London, Aaron grew up in Co. Wicklow and in Dublin.  He was educated at TCD (BA in Natural Sciences), QUB (MSc in Computational Physics), completing his PhD in Astrophyics at University of Galway.  He is an internationally recognised expert in Transient Astronomy specifically applied to the study of stellar/sub-stellar/planetary magnetospheres, with minor planet 11451 being named 'Aarongolden' by the International Astronomical Union in acknowledgement of his work.  He is regularly awarded peer-reviewed observatory time on telescopes located throughout the world, as well as several in earth orbit.  Aaron has served as a consultant to NASA's Planetary Science Division, in addition to holding Visiting Scientist positions at the Armagh Observatory and Planetarium, and at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.  He is currently an Honorary Senior Research Associate at the Department of Physics and Electronics, Rhodes University, Republic of South Africa.  Aaron was recently appointed Head of the I-LOFAR consortium which manages Ireland's national radio telescope facility located at Birr Co. Offaly, and will be the Irish representative on the LOFAR (Low Frequency Array Radiotelescope) ERIC Council.  As an interdisciplinary physicist, Aaron also contributes to successful research collaborations in genomics, medical physics and in climate science both on campus and with international collaborators.  He currently serves as Vice-Dean for Research and Innovation in the College of Science and Engineering.  

 

Dr Anastasia Griva, Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor, School of Business and Economics 

Anastasia Griva is a native of Galaxidi, Greece, and was educated at the Athens University of Economics and Business, where she completed her PhD in Business Analytics.  She spent two years as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Galway before joining the faculty as a Lecturer in Business Information Systems.  She is now an Associate Professor in the same discipline.  Anastasia has contributed to research commercialisation as co-founder of two AI and analytics start-ups that have collectively raised more than €1.6 million in VC funding.  Her research focuses on Responsible AI, with particular emphasis on Generative and Explainable AI, as well as analyticsdriven innovation.  She has published in leading journals, including Information Systems Journal, Information Systems Frontiers, IT & People, International Journal of Information Management, International Journal of Hospitality Management, IEEE Software, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, and others.  She has also served as a Guest Editor on five occasions IS journals 

 

Dr Ananya Gupta, Associate Professor, School of Medicine 

Dr Ananya Gupta graduated with a B.Sc. in Physiology (Honours) from Presidency College, Calcutta University, India, in 1995.  She obtained M.Sc. in Molecular Biology from the Calcutta University, India in 1997.  Dr Gupta was awarded prestigious CSIR-UGC fellowship to pursue her PhD studies and was conferred by the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India with a PhD in 2005.  Ananya joined the University of Galway as a Marie Curie Transfer of Knowledge Research Fellow in September 2007.  She was appointed as a Lecturer in Physiology at School of Medicine, in January 2016.  She holds a PGDip in Academic practices and has designed and launched two MSc courses in Exercise Physiology. She received the President’s Award for excellence in teaching in 2022.  Ananya's research is particularly aligned with the University’s research priority themes of cancer diagnosis, treatment, survivorship, and biomedical devices.  Her research has led to the identification of a novel approach leading to the development of a medical device (NuPREDICT©) to monitor chemotherapy-induced neutropenia.  To develop exercise physiology research and education at the University of Galway she launched the MSc in Exercise Physiology course and was appointed as Director of Exercise Physiology, in 2018.  She further expanded  her research to the application of exercise as therapy to improve health-related-fitness in various clinical settings.  She developed “Can-ReAct” – a personalised exercise-based rehabilitation program studying the effects of a multimodal exercise intervention on improving functional capacity and reducing fatigue in cancer survivors.  Ananya has obtained funding to support her research from EI, ICS and ERASMUS+.    

 

Professor Su-Ming Khoo, Professor in, School of Political Science and Sociology  
 
Su-Ming Khoo is Professor in Sociology at the University of Galway and Visiting Professor in Critical Studies in Higher Education Transformation (CriSHET) at Nelson Mandela University (2022-27).  Su-ming was born in Malaysia, and received her BA from University College London, and PhD from the Queen’s University of Belfast.  She researches, teaches and writes about critical development studies, human development, human rights, public goods, development alternatives, decoloniality, global activism and learning, higher education, and trans disciplinarity.  She is co-Editor in Chief of the Journal of Creative Research Methods with Sophie Woodward and Harriet Shortt.  Her newest publication is: The Modern World After Colonialism: Remaking the Social Sciences, edited with Gurminder Bhambra, Ipek Demir, Paul Gilbert, and Lucy Mayblin, available from Bristol University Press, February 2026.   

 

Dr Róisín Mulgrew, Associate Professor, School of Law 
 
Dr Mulgrew holds a Bachelor of Corporate Law and LL.B. (NUIG), and LL.M. International Criminal Justice and Armed Conflict, MA Socio-legal and Criminological Research and a PhD (University of Nottingham).  She was Associate Professor in Law at the University of Nottingham before joining the University of Galway in 2020.  She is the lead for the Crime, Punishment and Rights Research Cluster and Programme Director for the LLM in Criminology, Criminal Justice and Human Rights at the School of Law.  Dr Mulgrew has published two monographs on the enforcement of international punishment (Cambridge University Press, 2013; Elgar, 2024) and is under contract with Oxford University Press to write a third on international prison law.  She has published extensively on punishment and rights in peer-reviewed journals and collections, and acted as lead editor for collections and special issues.  She has acted as an expert consultant for a number of international bodies including the UN Office of Drugs and Crime and the EU Fundamental Rights Agency.  Dr Mulgrew is currently a Director on the Irish Penal Reform Trust’s Board, expert panel member of the Office of the Inspector of Prisons’ Expert Panel, member of EuroPris-CEP Expert group and scientific expert for the Council of Europe’s Council for Penological Cooperation responsible for drafting a Recommendation concerning foreign nationals in prison and probation.  

 

Professor Jurgita Ovadnevaite, Professor in, School of Natural Sciences 

Jurgita Ovadnevaite is the director of the Ryan Institute’s Centre for Climate and Air Pollution Studies (C-CAPS), where her work focuses on identifying particle sources and their impacts on climate, air quality, and health. She leads the source apportionment theme in Ireland’s National Research Forum, organized by the Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment (DCEE). Jurgita serves as a Principal Investigator and/or Work Package leader on several major national and EU-funded projects, publishes her research in high-profile international journals (including Nature and the Nature family), and acts as a reviewer for these journals. She is also a contributing author to the latest IPCC Assessment Report. Committed to bridging science and policy, Jurgita and her team provide evidence to support policy change and implementation. Working closely with policymakers in the Republic of Ireland (EPA and DCEE) her work enabled air policy changes, such as the recent Solid Fuel Regulations 2022.

 

Dr Pilib Ó Broin, Associate Professor, School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences  

Pilib is originally from Dublin and completed his PhD in Bioinformatics at University of Galway under the supervision of Dr. Aaron Golden. After six years at the Einstein College of Medicine in New York, Pilib returned to Galway in 2015 to help establish the MSc programmes in Biomedical Genomics and Genomics Data Science, serving as Programme Director for these until 2023. Pilib's research focuses on the development of statistical and machine learning approaches for the integration of imaging, genetic, and clinical data to identify biomarkers for disease progression, treatment response, and relapse risk. This work is carried out in collaboration with a wide range of national and international clinical, academic, and industry partners. Pilib serves as a board member of Translational Medicine Alliance Ireland (TMAI), on the Senior Council of the Irish Association for Cancer Research (IACR), and as Deputy Head-of-Node for ELIXIR Ireland. 

  

Dr Charles O’Mahony, Associate Professor, School of Law  

Dr Charles O’Mahony is an Associate Professor in the School of Law at the University of Galway.  He research is in the areas of disability law, mental health law and policy, and access to justice with a particular focus on the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.  He is on the editorial board of the International Journal of Law and Psychiatry.  Charles teaches across law, nursing, and arts programmes, including modules on introduction to law, international and comparative disability rights, law and ethics, and minority groups in the criminal justice system.  He previously served as the Head of the School of Law (2017- 2021) and completed two terms as President of the Irish Association of Law Teachers.  Prior to talking up his post at the University of Galway he worked as Legal Officer for Amnesty International Ireland and as a legal researcher with the Law Reform Commission 

 

Dr Maeve O’Rourke, Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor, School of Law  

Maeve O’Rourke, PhD (Birmingham), LLM (Harvard), BCL (University College Dublin), is Senior Lecturer at the Irish Centre for Human Rights, School of Law, University of Galway.  Maeve is Programme Director of the Law (BCL) and Human Rights undergraduate degree and founding Director of the ICHR’s postgraduate Human Rights Law Clinic.  She has received the University President’s Award for Teaching Excellence and the College of Business, Public Policy and Law Award for Inclusive Teaching. Maeve’s books include Human Rights and the Care of Older People: Dignity, Vulnerability, and the Anti-Torture Norm (Oxford University Press 2024), and Ireland and the Magdalene Laundries: A Campaign for Justice (IB Tauris/Bloomsbury 2021) (co-authored).  On foot of her long-standing collaborative research and many publications relating to Ireland’s institutional and family separation abuses, Maeve was commissioned by the Northern Ireland Executive in 2021 to design the framework for a now-ongoing state investigation. Prior to joining University of Galway, Maeve practised as a barrister in England & Wales and worked for the Irish Council for Civil Liberties.  She was appointed to Young Academy Ireland in 2023.  

 

Dr Constantina Papatriantafyllopoulou, Associate Professor, School of Biological and Chemical Sciences  

Dr Constantina Papatriantafyllopoulou is Associate Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Galway.  She leads the Galway Porous Materials (GPM) research group, designing and studying metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) for biomedical and environmental applications, with a particular focus on MOFbased drug carriers and porous-material sensors for hazardous chemicals. Her research has produced material with exceptionally high drug loading and controlled release.  She has authored 95 peer-reviewed publications and contributed a book chapter (Wiley-VCH, 2019). In education leadership, she coordinates final-year chemistry programmes and led the successful Royal Society of Chemistry accreditation of University of Galway chemistry programmes (2024/25–2028/29). She has also served as Chemistry Pathway Director and contributes to public engagement and equality, diversity and inclusion initiatives. 

 

Dr Tina-Karen Pusse, Associate Professor, School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures 

Tina-Karen Pusse grew up in the Saar region, at the German French border.  She studied German Literature and Philosophie in Freiburg and Paris and wrote her doctoral dissertation on theory of laughter in Nietzsche, Kafka, E.T.A Hoffmann and Kleist at Cologne University, where she taught German Literature and Media Theory before coming to Galway in 2008. She served as Head of School from 2020 to 2024.  Since 2022, she has been a member of the RIA committee for Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Communications, and co-chair of the International Staff Network. She is Director of Postgraduate Studies at the School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, and set up the MA in International Contemporary Literatures and Media, that she coordinates since 2010. Since 2011 she put Galway on the map in the Environmental Humanities by organising conferences, workshop series and international summer schools and publishing widely in the area of Ecocriticism. Currently she is co-PI of the European Societal Challenges Grant: Exploring Ageing and Climate Change in Tandem” funded by the DAAD (the German Academic Exchange Service). 

 

Dr Kathy Reilly, Associate Professor, School of Geography, Archaeology and Irish Studies

Kathy Reilly is a native of Corofin, Galway and was educated at University of Galway where she graduated with her PhD in Geography in 2009.  Following time as a Postdoctoral researcher in Galway, she lectured at Dublin City University and was an adjunct lecturer at York University, Toronto, before rejoining University of Galway as Lecturer in Geography in 2014.  With a focus on the lives of children and youth, she has published widely on social, cultural and environmental justice themes.  Her work is underpinned by participatory, co-produced research methodologies, and she has contributed to interdisciplinary projects including CCC-CATAPULT and The Places and Spaces of Childhood in Ireland Project. Kathy has supervised numerous PhD students. Within the College she previously served as Associate Dean (Undergraduate Studies) and within the School, Kathy is currently the Chair of the School’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee and is leading the School’s first Athena Swan Bronze Award application. 

 

Professor Guangxue Wu, Professor in, School of Engineering 

Guangxue was educated at Shandong Jianzhu University (BEng in Water and Wastewater Engineering), Tsinghua University (MSc in Civil Engineering), and the University of Galway (PhD in Civil Engineering).  He previously served as an Associate Professor at the Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School, China, before moving to the University of Galway.  His research primarily focuses on environmental biotechnology for pollution remediation and renewable energy production, with particular emphasis on anaerobic digestion.  He has published extensively in leading research journals, including Nature Water and Water Research, on sustainable wastewater treatment and resource recovery from waste streams.  He currently serves as the Principal Investigator of the prestigious Science Foundation Ireland Frontiers for the Future Programme Award and as the coordinator of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Doctoral Networks 2023 LeAD project.  In recognition of his significant contributions, he has received numerous professional awards, including the Excellent Contribution Award of Water Cycle and the ISO Excellence Award. 

 

Below are the bios of some of the Academic staff promoted in Round 9 of the Academic Promotions scheme 2024. 
(Note, this is not the definitive list of applicants promoted in Round 9, only those who submitted their bios in support of this initiative).

 

Professor Manus Biggs, Professor in, School of Engineering  

Manus Biggs, a native of Galway city secured a lectureship at the University of Galway in 2014 after completing a PhD at the University of Glasgow and conducting postdoctoral research at Columbia University, New York.  His highly interdisciplinary research is focused on the brain-machine interface, the development of electrically active nanotechnologies in regenerative medicine, biodegradable biosensors, tissue engineering and mechanobiology, with research outputs greatly facilitated through  a series of prestigious funding awards, which has facilitated frontier, blue-sky research into the development of novel smart biomaterials and applied research in the area of medical implant design.  To date, he has published over 80 peer-reviewed publications in top tier journals, including Nature Biomedical Engineering, Advanced Materials, Advanced Functional Materials, ASC Nano, Small and Cell Bioenegineering. 

 

Professor Daniel Carey, Established Professor, School of English, Media and Creative Arts 
 
Originally from the US, Dan studied at McGill (BA), TCD (MPhil) and Oxford (DPhil). Appointed to the university in 1997, he served as Director of the Moore Institute from 2014-23. His work investigates the relationship between the history of travel, colonialism, and intellectual history, with books and edited volumes on Locke, Shaftesbury, and Hutcheson: Contesting Diversity in the Enlightenment and Beyond (Cambridge, 2006), The Postcolonial Enlightenment (Oxford, 2009), and Money and Political Economy in the Enlightenment (Oxford, 2014). He has published on Renaissance and eighteenth-century literature, history of science, anthropology, and philosophy of money, and created two online digital resources. Public pieces have appeared in the Irish Times, Sunday Independent, Times Higher, and other outlets. He has held visiting professorships at Notre Dame, Columbia, the Sorbonne, and Paris Cité. Outside roles include Chair of the Irish Research Council (2022–24) and Secretary of the Royal Irish Academy (2024–).  

 

Dr Carmel Devaney, Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor, School of Political Science and Sociology 

Carmel is a native of Sligo and holds a BA in Social Science from TU Dublin and an MA and PhD from the University of Galway.  Her research and teaching focus on Family and Parenting support, Child Protection and Welfare, Alternative Care and professional practice in services for children, young people, and families. Carmel is Head of the Discipline of Applied Social Science and has a strong record of research leadership and collaboration with Government Departments and the social service sector, ensuring policy and practice impact.  She previously worked in statutory children and family services in practitioner and management roles. Carmel has held senior leadership roles in European research networks, including EurofamNet (2019–2023), and contributed to a COST Innovators Grant on quality assurance in family support services.  Her research in this area advanced a multidimensional framework for family support grounded in children’s rights, social justice, and gender equality. 

 

Dr Eugene Farrell, Associate Professor, School of Geography, Archaeology and Irish Studies 

Dr Eugene Farrell is an Associate Professor in Geography with research expertise in geomorphology and coastal resilience. His recent research investigates politically sensitive and socially complex issues such as planning the managed relocation of people and critical infrastructure away from at risk coastlines. He is an advisor for multiple Irish government departments and agencies with explicit research and policy remits to protect and conserve coastal and marine environments and for implementing Nature Based Solutions in terrestrial (dunes), tidal (wetlands) and nearshore (seagrass, oyster and kelp beds) areas – all embedded within wider socio-economic, heritage and cultural contexts. He has been invited as an expert speaker to the European Commission Latin America and the Caribbean Innovation Cooperation, the European Investment Bank and the All-Atlantic Ocean Research and Innovation Alliance which is a science diplomacy initiative encompassing most countries around the Atlantic Ocean. He is a contributing author to the European Marine Board (EMB) 2023 'Building Coastal Resilience in Europe' position paper and Irelands Climate Change Assessment 2024 report. His working partnerships with community volunteer groups, government bodies (local and international) and other stakeholders means his research extends far beyond the academic sphere. He has been nominated for a Presidents Award for Teaching Excellence (2015) and has won a Presidents Award for Societal Impact (2018) and Presidents Award for Research Excellence (2024).

 

Dr Brendan Flynn, Associate Professor/Senior Lecturer, School of Political Science and Sociology  
 
Brendan originally hails from Tullamore, but his Galway family roots have always drawn in him back west.  His BA was taken in then UCG with a subsequent MA and PhD at the University of Essex.  His thesis was on Subsidiarity and EU environmental policy under the supervision of Prof. Albert Weale.  He was appointed as a lecturer in 1998.  Today, his research interests and publications focus on maritime security, resilience and the intersection between energy, climate change and security more broadly.  He has taught a wide range of courses at both undergraduate and post-graduate levels, as well as making contributions to several Command and Staff courses for the Irish Defence Forces.  He is a frequent media commentator on security developments and Irish politics.  

 

Dr Noel Harrison, Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor, School of Engineering 

Noel is from Ballina, Co. Mayo, and holds a B.E. (2002) and PhD (2007) in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Galway.  He has over 20 years of experience in applied and fundamental research and has led major projects within the I-Form, Construct Innovate, and IComp centres.  He founded the Advanced and Sustainable Manufacturing and Materials Engineering (ASMME) group, which advances both traditional and next-generation manufacturing technologies for metals, polymers, composites, and concrete.  He has a journal publication h-index of 30, holds licensed patents for orthopaedic devices, and has licensed engineering analysis software to Ireland's energy sector.  He has secured €3.5 million in research funding and has supervised or co-supervised nine PhD completions. Noel also established and continues to grow the Advanced Manufacturing Lab in the Alice Perry Engineering Building, which now houses an extensive suite of advanced 3D printers and industry grade robots.  His teaching focuses on manufacturing technologies and materials, and he coordinates the capstone design project modules in Mechanical Engineering.  As Programme Director, Noel led the development of the integrated five-year BE-ME in Mechanical Engineering programme.  He is actively involved in STEM outreach in local schools and is also chair of the national NSAI/TC 049/SC 02 Additive Manufacturing committee. 

 

Professor Elaine Keane, Professor in, School of Education 

Elaine is a Galwegian and was educated at University of Galway (BA, HDipEd, MEd, PhD).  A former post-primary teacher, and project coordinator implementing access programmes nationally, she joined CELT as researcher in 2004, commencing as Lecturer (Sociology of Education) in the School of Education in 2006.  Head of Discipline and Deputy Head of School of Education since 2024, she was Director of Doctoral Studies for 13 years.  Her research concerns widening participation and social class in education, teacher diversity, and constructivist grounded theory (CGT).  She has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals and books and has led projects as PI (funded by IRC, HEA, HRB, ERASMUS+).  Elaine is a recognised world leader on CGT, providing keynotes and workshops at major international research methodology events.  Lead editor of the Routledge International Handbook of Constructivist Grounded Theory in Educational Research (2025), Elaine is (Europe) Editor of International Journal of Qualitative Methods and Co-Editor of Irish Educational Studies.  

 

Professor Derek Morris, Established Professor, School of Biological and Chemical Sciences 

Derek Morris is from Ennis, Co. Clare and was educated at University of Galway (BSc in Biotechnology; 1998) and Cardiff University (PhD in Molecular Genetics; 2001).  His research career has focused on neuropsychiatric genetics.  His first postdoctoral position was at Trinity College Dublin where he was awarded a Health Research Board Postdoctoral Career Development Research Fellowship (2003) and was appointed Lecturer in Molecular Psychiatry (2006).  Using Science Foundation Ireland funding, he set up TrinSeq, the first next-generation DNA sequencing lab in Ireland (2008).  In 2013, Derek moved to University of Galway as Lecturer in Biomedical Science and a PI in the Centre for Neuroimaging, Cognition and Genomics (NICOG).  He has >280 publications including 43 as first/senior author and he has secured >€4.25M in funding for his group.  He is involved in international consortia undertaking genetic studies of psychiatric disorders that have been published in Nature, Science and Cell.  Derek is a former President of the Irish Society of Human Genetics (2014-16) and a former Director of the Galway Neuroscience Centre (2021-22).  He is the first Programme Director for the BSc in Genetics and Genomics at University of Galway, which he helped establish as a new course in 2020.  

 

Dr John McCrae, Associate Professor, School of Computer Science 

John P. McCrae is an Associate Professor at the University of Galway whose research focuses on natural language processing, knowledge graphs, and linguistic linked data.  He has authored more than 220 publications in leading venues and has attracted over €3.3 million in research funding, including an IRC Laureate Award and major collaborative projects with industry partners such as Fidelity Investments, Huawei, and Genesys.  A founder and chair of the Language, Data and Knowledge conference series, he has played a leading role in international research infrastructure initiatives and contributed extensively to resources such as English WordNet and the ELEXIS project.  He has supervised seven PhD students to completion, received the University’s President’s Award for Research Excellence in 2019, and led the School’s successful Athena SWAN Bronze Award application. 

 

Dr James McDermott, Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor, School of Computer Science 

James graduated from the University of Galway BSc in Computer Science with Mathematics (2000), and then worked on supercomputers with Compaq in Ballybrit.  His PhD was in evolutionary computation and computer music in University of Limerick (2008).  He was an Irish Research Council - Marie Curie post-doctoral fellow in Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University College Dublin, and then lectured at the UCD Business School, before returning to Galway and the School of Computer Science (2019).  He is a member of the Data Science Institute and collaborates with colleagues in Engineering, Centre for Creativity, DCU, UK, and more.  His research interests are in artificial intelligence, including evolutionary computation, genetic programming, and machine learning, with applications in sustainability and music.  He has chaired international conferences including EuroGP, EvoMUSART, and the GECCO GECH Track.  He is an associate editor of the Genetic Programming and Evolvable Machines journal, and associate editor of the ACM SIGEvolution newsletter.  In 2022 he won the ACM SIGEvo 10-year Impact Award. 

 

Professor John McDonagh, Professor in, School of Geography, Archaeology and Irish Studies 

John is a Professor in Geography with strong rural research interests. His expertise focuses on critiquing agricultural policy; deliberating future functions of small-scale farming and assessing the complex challenges facing the multifunctional countryside. For his PhD research, John was a Bristol University Scholarship recipient where he worked with distinguished geographer Professor Paul Cloke. Since joining the University of Galway, John has filled the role of Head of Geography on two occasions; published several books; a large number of articles in high-impact international journals; delivered keynote addresses and numerous conference papers; authored many EC reports and policy briefs. John has an impressive international reputation having worked on several European (INTERREG; FP5; FP7; HORIZON 2020; DAFM) multi-partnered projects. John is currently compiling an Encyclopedia of Land Use to be published in late 2026.  

 

Dr Patrick McGetrick, Associate Professor, School of Engineering 

Patrick, a native of Sligo, earned a BEng (2008) and PhD (2012) in Civil Engineering at University College Dublin, specialising in infrastructure condition monitoring under Dr Arturo Gonzalez and Professor Eugene O’Brien.  He continued this research as an Assistant Professor at Kyoto University (2012-14), where he also taught on the Undergraduate Civil Engineering Program.  He later joined Queen’s University Belfast (2014-19) as a Lecturer in Structural Engineering, expanding his work to novel steel connection design, masonry support behaviour, and mass timber performance in multi storey buildings.  Patrick is now Director of the Timber Engineering Research Group at the University of Galway, the national leader in this field.  He serves as Programme Director for the BE in Civil Engineering and is an elected member of Academic Council.  He has led national and international research collaborations with partners across Europe, the USA, Asia, Australia and chairs both the national Timber in Construction R&D Thematic Group, and the Construct Innovate Mass Timber Construction group. 

 

Dr Justin Tonra, Associate Professor, School of English, Media and Creative Arts 

Justin is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin (BA, 2001), University College Dublin (MA, 2004), and University of Galway (PhD, 2010).  Before joining the Discipline of English at Galway, he held positions at University College London and the University of Virginia.  He is the author of a monograph, Write My Name: Authorship in the Poetry of Thomas Moore (Routledge, 2020), and has published widely on his research interests at the intersections of literature and technology.  Justin is a founding member of the UK-Ireland Digital Humanities Association and has worked on two European Union-funded digital humanities projects, Distant Reading for European Literary History (COST) and CLS INFRA: Computational Literary Studies Infrastructure (Horizon 2020).  Since 2023, he has served as University of Galway’s Academic Integrity Officer and is the current Deputy Chair of the National Academic Integrity Network.