Dr Sheena McHugh is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Public Health, and Lead Investigator of the CUSTOMISE project. Her primary areas of interest are implementation science, quality improvement and chronic disease management. You can read more about Sheena's research here.

Ana Contreras Navarro joined the CUSTOMISE project as a Senior Postdoctoral Researcher in 2024. Ana's research within CUSTOMISE is focused on understanding the process of tailoring implementation strategies in health care settings. Before joining the HIRH, Ana worked at the National Suicide Research Foundation on the EU-funded project 'MENTBEST: Protecting mental health in times of change' and at the UCC School of Public Health on the EU Joint Action 'Best-ReMaP: Healthy food for a healthy future'. Ana's research interests include public health policy for disease prevention, food systems and food security, decision making, and implementation science. You can find Ana on LinkedIn and X.

Dr Monica O’Mullane is a Research Fellow in the School of Public Health, UCC. She is PI on the HRB funded HIA-IM (Developing a Health Impact Assessment Implementation Model: Enhancing Intersectoral Approaches in Tackling health Inequalities) project, co-hosted in UCC between the School of Public Health and ISS21. Monica’s research interests include enhancing intersectoral approaches for health improvement, with most of her work in this area focused on the Health Impact Assessment (HIA) approach. Other research interests include knowledge use in policy development, gender equality institutionalisation and action research and participatory research methods in interdisciplinary research studies. You can read more about Monica’s research here. or here www.monicaomullane.com. 

Aoife O’Mahony is a Postdoctoral Researcher working on the CUSTOMISE Project. She completed her PhD in Psychology at Cardiff University. Her PhD focused on the Registered Reports publishing format and whether research published through this process is more rigorous and transparent than standard scientific publishing practices. Her background prior to that was in various areas of healthcare research, particularly systematic reviews. Her research interests include evidence-based healthcare, evidence synthesis, research integrity and open science, particularly Registered Reports. 

Anna Kulig is a Research Assistant working on the HRB, Applied Partnership Award 'Optimising practice feedback to improve diabetes care' (OPTI AUDIT-GP). Her research to date has been focused on factors contributing to access to healthcare and disability services for minority groups (persons with disabilities, migrants). She is interested in digital health intervention development and implementation, participatory research, art-based research, health inequalities and social justice. Anna is currently completing her MSc in Health Psychology at University of Galway.

Laura-Jane McCarthy is a HRB funded PhD student. She graduated from University College Cork with a BSc General Nursing (Hons) in 2008 and is a registered general nurse. She more recently graduated with a First-Class Hons Master of Public Health. Her master’s thesis was entitled “Experiences of Menstrual Health and Hygiene in Humanitarian Emergencies: a qualitative systematic review”. Laura-Jane has a strong interest in women’s health, global health equity and implementation science. She worked as a Research Assistant on the CUSTOMISE project (Jan 2023-Oct 2023). During this post, Laura-Jane became increasingly interested in equitable implementation of evidence-based interventions in healthcare. To learn more about her research click here.

Julia Banasiak is a Research Assistant working on the HRB Knowledge Translation Award project entitled “Translating the tailoring process to improve the implementation of diabetes care”. This knowledge translation activity supports the CUSTOMISE project. Julia has recently completed a Masters in Dental Public Health in UCC. Her public health research background primarily involves systematic reviewing; her Master’s dissertation was an overview of reviews on the effect of depressive and anxiety disorders on oral health.  Julia’s research interests include health promotion in chronic disease, implementation science, oral-systemic health connections, social determinants of health, and interdisciplinary co-operation in research. She also partakes in PPI-oriented research on oral health promotion in children with type 1 diabetes led by the Oral Health Services Research Centre in UCC.

Clair Haseldine is a PhD scholar with the SPHeRE (Structured Population and Health Services Research Education) Programme. Clair is a Chartered Physiotherapist and is interested in chronic disease prevention and management and implementation science. You can read more about Clair's research here.

Márcia Carvalho is a Research Assistant with the Optimising Practice Feedback to Improve Diabetes Care at the School of Public Health at the University of Cork (UCC). Prior to joining UCC, Márcia was a PhD scholar at the School of Psychology, University of Galway, from 2020 – 2024, researching behaviour change maintenance among people living with type 2 diabetes as part of the Health Research Board Collaborative Doctoral Award in Chronic Disease Prevention (CDP-CDP) and the Structured Population Health, Policy and Health-services Research Education (SPHeRE) PhD Programme. With a background in health psychology, Márcia’s research interests include health behaviour change, chronic disease prevention and self-management, and intervention development, evaluation and optimisation.