Professor Yvonne Nolan:

Yvonne Nolan is Vice Dean of Graduate Studies in the College of Medicine and Health and Professor in Neuroscience. She has extensive experience of graduate education, research supervision and mentoring, having trained more than 30 postgraduate and postdoctoral researchers. She has taught and supervised students in 3 of our 4 Colleges, has served on, or chaired graduate committees and steering groups at Departmental, School and University fora in UCC, has examined numerous PhD candidates nationally and internationally, and was awarded UCC’s Research Supervisor of the Year in 2016.

Professor Nolan has secured over €5M from national and international agencies to fund her research group who investigate the impact of lifestyle factors on brain plasticity, memory, and mood. She currently leads an SFI Frontiers for the Future Award and is a Funded Investigator at APC Microbiome Ireland. She serves on advisory groups for the Wellcome/HRB Irish Clinical Academic Training (ICAT) programme and for Dementia Research Network Ireland.

Professor Nolan is a strong advocate for respect, transparency, collegiality, and efficiency. In her role as Vice Dean for Graduate Studies in the CoMH, she pledges to adhere to these values in her work with colleagues and students in the College, University, healthcare groups and health sciences industries.

Yvonne is the inspiration and organiser of today's Bright Futures research meeting and she will chair the Fireside chat session.

Dr Sarah-Jo Sinnott:

Dr Shane Hegarty:

Dr Shane Hegarty graduated as the top ranked student of Neuroscience BSc with a 1st Class Hons from UCC in 2010, having been awarded the distinction of ‘College Scholar’ in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010, and the ‘Certificate of Excellence’ in 2010 for academic excellence. In 2010, he was awarded the prestigious 'IRCSET EMBARK Postgraduate Scholarship' by Irish Research Council (IRC) to carry out his proposed PhD project in Dept. Anatomy & Neuroscience, UCC, under supervision of Professors Aideen Sullivan & Gerard O'Keeffe. He was awarded the highly competitive 'Government of Ireland Post-Doctoral Fellowship' by the IRC in 2014, and the 'NUI Post-Doctoral Fellowship in the Sciences' by the National University of Ireland in 2015, to facilitate his Post-Doctoral research in the Dept. of Anatomy and Neuroscience, UCC, which built on his PhD work.

As a researcher, he has been awarded places on international training courses, travel bursaries and 'best presentation' at a number of conferences. He has published 29 peer-reviewed journal articles (19 first author; 4 senior author) to date, which have generated >1,200 citations and a ‘h-index’ of 16, and two patents. In 2015 he was awarded IRC 'New Foundation Award' to launch the ongoing 'BRAINTALK' outreach project. He was awarded prestigious 'Charlemont Grant' in 2016 from Royal Irish Academy to extend his research in Prof. Danny Huylebroeck’s laboratory in Erasmus MC, Netherlands and KU Leuven, Belgium. In August 2016, he was appointed to Faculty as a full-time Lecturer and Researcher in Dept. of Anatomy & Neuroscience, UCC. In September 2016, Shane was awarded the prestigious Neuroscience Ireland ‘Early Career Investigator Award’ which recognises ‘outstanding Neuroscience research’.

In August 2017 Dr Hegarty left a tenure track position in an Irish University in order to begin his employment as a Research Fellow in laboratory of Professor Zhigang He, in Dept. of Neurology, Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard. In Sept. 2018, he became Adjunct Professor at Wentworth Institute of Technology. In January 2020, as a principal investigator he was granted a 'William Randolph Hearst Fund Award' for 2020 by the William Randolph Hearst Foundation in recognition of, and to progress, his research work in HMS/BCH. In Jan. 2021, Shane joined Harvard i-Labs and President’s Innovation Challenge to spin out these recent discoveries. In April 2021, Dr. Hegarty became Chief Scientific Officer and Co-Founder of AXONIS Therapeutics, to pursue his lifelong mission of advancing new therapies into clinic for neurological disorders.

From Shane Hegarty LinkedIn

Dr Michael Myers:

Dr Tanya Mulcahy:

Tanya is Director of Health Innovation Hub Ireland (HIHI). She  has over 30 years’ experience in the start-up,  pharma, product development and research industry in Ireland and the US. She has a PhD in Cancer Genetics, has conducted postdoctoral research in neuropsychiatric genetics, has a BSc in Biochemistry and a Postgraduate Diploma in Clinical Trials. She has been appointed by the Minister for Health to the HPRA  Medical Device Advisory Committee. She is an advisory board member of the  HRB Clinical Research Facility -CRF-C. Tanya is an advocate for female founders and is particularly interested in women’s health and recently established Ireland’s first Femtech initiative Femtech@Health Innovation Hub Ireland.

Dr Siobhán Cusack:

Dr Siobhán Cusack graduated with a BA (Mod) Genetics (1996), PG Dip. Statistics (1999) and MSc (2000) from TCD, and a PhD (2004) from UCC. Her clinical focus includes molecular haematological research at St. James's Hospital and national epidemiological profiling/monitoring at the National Virus Reference Laboratory, Dublin (1996-2000). Following postdoctoral research at the Transgenic Bacteriology Laboratory, APC (http://apc.ucc.ie), Siobhán was UCC’s Science Foundation Ireland Research Administrator (2006-2007). From 2008-2011, she combined research, management and administration as Clinical and Project Co-ordinator of the highly successful ELDERMET project (http://eldermet.ucc.ie) which resulted in highly cited publications in PNAS and Nature. Siobhán was UCC's Research Officer (2011-2013) and Senior Research Officer (2013-2017) with specific responsibility for oversight and management of SFI-funded Research Centres at UCC. This portfolio of co-funded exchequer, industry and other non-exchequer funding realised ~€545M nationally (~€190M from industry) in 2016. UCC was the most successful HEI in this programme, leading/co-leading 5 of the 12 national Centres (2016) and a major partner in 6 others. Siobhán also has a significant track record in supporting the entirety of the UCC community in recognising and defining the potential and actualisable impact inherent in all disciplines, particularly that arising from exchequer and/or industrial research investment.
In March 2017, Siobhán was appointed Head of UCC's Student Records and Examinations Office. Over 20 years of research experience provides the ideal platform from which to lead the SREO in (i) delivering continued excellence across its core functions (~100,000 examinations, ~185,000 registration events, annually) while (ii) also successfully driving innovative process and procedural review, supporting projects which will define the composition and delivery of UCC's next generation educational offerings.

From Dr Siobhán Cusack LinkedIn 

Dr Mohamad Saab:

Dr Mohamad M. Saab is a Lecturer in the UCC School of Nursing and Midwifery and a Registered General Nurse. He holds a BSc in Nursing (2008, distinction) and MSc in Advanced Practice Nursing (2013, distinction) from the American University of Beirut, Rafic Hariri School of Nursing in Lebanon. He also holds a PhD in Nursing by publication (2017, 10 publications) as well as a Postgraduate Certificate (2018) and Diploma (2019) in Teaching and Learning in Higher education from UCC.

Mohamad has €2.3 million in research funding, including more than €500,000 as Principal Investigator. He has recently secured Health Research Board Definitive Intervention and Feasibility Award (HRB DIFA) funding to the value of €391,369 in order test the feasibility of a virtual reality (VR) intervention to promote awareness of testicular diseases among Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) players in Ireland.

Dr Saab has over 65 research outputs including a number of peer-reviewed publications (full list of publication available at: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=bIOjJ-YAAAAJ&hl=en). He is research active in using VR in men’s health promotion and VR simulation in nursing education. Other topics include lung cancer referral pathways; health disparities including gender and sexual minorities; mental health research; nursing leadership; patient safety; and cancer awareness and survivorship.

Mohamad currently serves as Associate Editor in the European Journal of Cancer Prevention and the International Journal of Men’s Social and Community Health and Reviewer in the Journal of Advanced Nursing, Nursing Research, Journal of Clinical Nursing, Cancer Nursing, and Psycho-oncology, among others. Over the past nine years, he presented his work in over 50 national and international conferences and won multiple oral and poster presentation awards. 

At the UCC School of Nursing and Midwifery, Dr Saab coordinates the first year of the MSc in Advanced Practice. He is Module Leader and teaches on a number of undergraduate and postgraduate modules, with a focus on oncology nursing, palliative care, simulation, and nursing research.

Dr Saab is member of a number of School and University committees and research groups (e.g., Academic Council, Quality Improvement Committee, College Council, Research Committee, Graduate Committee, Enhancing Cancer Awareness and Survivorship Programmes [E.CASP]) research group, among others). He is Co-Chair of the School of Nursing And Midwifery’s Athena SWAN committee. He was heavily involved in preparing the application which granted the School its Athena SWAN Bronze award, making it the first School of Nursing and Midwifery to receive this prestigious award in Ireland. 

Professor Helen Whelton:

Helen Whelton is Head of the College of Medicine and Health and Chief Academic Officer to the HSE South South West Hospital Group.
She was formerly Dean of Dentistry at the University of Leeds and Faculty Lead for Internationalisation.
Her research interests include Health Services Research and she is the coordinating PI of an H2020 grant involving 8 health insurers in 6 EU countries.
Since gaining a PhD in Oral Epidemiology she has led multiple regional and six national oral health surveys in Ireland, she has also been involved in helping others in both developing and developed countries to monitor oral health among their populations. She has been PI on an extensive range of RCTs for industry. She heads up a multidisciplinary investigator driven research team who combine both laboratory and clinical research in a purpose built research centre at the University. She leads a number of interdisciplinary research projects dealing with the interrogation of large oral health services databases.
Her research has informed the development of dental services and she has also expanded her research contribution to the areas of overweight and obesity and to women’s general health issues. Internationally her research focus has been on health services research incorporating fluoride research. She has contributed to the development of the agenda for dental research nationally and internationally through her leadership of research organisations.including The International Association for Dental Research.

Professor John O'Halloran President of UCC:

My Background
A proud alumnus of University College Cork, I graduated with a degree in Zoology in 1984, a PhD in 1987 and was awarded a DSc for my published works in 2009. I have published almost 250 research papers and a number of books, details of which are set out in my publication list.

In September 2021 I was appointed President of University College Cork. Prior to taking up that role I had served as Interim President for one year and, prior to that, as Deputy President and Registrar since 2018. As Registrar, I had the privilege to lead a team of passionate people with responsibility for academic affairs and strategy of the university. You can read about the activities of that office on the website. I am Chair of the University Management Team and also chair a range of other UCC committees including the Athena SWAN Steering Group.

I was the founding Director of UCC’s Quercus Talented Students Programme. I am co-chair of the Green Campus Forum which has received many awards in recognition of its efforts to promote the Green Agenda at UCC, including the first green flag ever awarded to a university and our recent placing at 8th in the world in the prestigious Times Higher Education (THE) Impact Rankings. One of the annual highlights for me is to judge the prestigious UNESCO-L’Oréal-Royal Society Women Science Scholarship in London, which I have done each year for the past 10 years, and the other is to chair the judging panel for Biology and Ecology at the BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition. I was also honoured to be awarded honorary membership of the Students’ Union of Ireland in 2005 for my contributions to graduate education and policies. I am very active in the local community and am the Chair of the Board of Fota Wildlife Park in Cork.

I was previously Vice-President for Teaching and Learning at UCC where I led a team that supported the provision of high quality teaching and learning, adult and continuing education, online learning and staff development at UCC.

Prior to that, I was founding Head of School of Biological, Earth & Environmental Sciences at UCC, where I still hold the Chair in Zoology. I am also a former Vice-Head of the College of Science, Engineering & Food Science and have previously held academic posts in Cardiff, Wales and Maine, USA. I have delivered lectures widely in Ireland and across Europe and North America.

My discipline is biology, and my main area of research is ornithology with a particular interest in both swans and dippers. I have also undertaken a significant body of research on forest ecology and forest biodiversity and have led a number of research projects with considerable input to local and EU policy and practice in the area of human influences on environmental change. I am the Chair or Ireland’s Countryside Bird Survey Steering Committee, former Vice-President of the British Trust for Ornithology, and an advisor to the European Environment Agency. I greatly enjoy outreach and collaboration with industry, government agencies and non-government organisations, locally, nationally and internationally, and have undertaken a large body of work on research translation through conferences and workshops.

Professor John O'Halloran