Dr Andrea Bowe
PhD Title: Identifying and Predicting Below Average Intellectual Function in Childhood
Andrea is a public health medicine SpR and ICAT fellow. Her PhD will focus on prediction of neurodevelopmental outcomes using epidemiological data and machine learning.
Aoife Barry
PhD Title: Improving developmental outcomes in Cerebral Palsy. Implementation of the EiSMART approach to early intervention in a high risk infant population’
Aoife is currently employed as a Senior Occupational Therapist by Enable Ireland on a Children’s Disability Network Team (CDNT). She is interested in early intervention and how it is delivered, particularly for children with neurodisability.
Aoife is undertaking an employment-based PhD with the INFANT Centre under the supervision of Professor Deirdre Murray and Dr Daragh Finn. Aoife’s research will focus on early intervention for babies categorised at high risk of adverse neurodevelopmental outcome.
Dr Danielle Clifford
MD Title: Novel Approaches for Early Detection of Cognitive and Motor Difficulties in High-Risk Infants
Danielle is a University College Cork medical graduate and a Specialist Registrar in Paediatrics with the Royal College of Physicians Ireland (RCPI). She is currently an MD student at University College Cork and Clinical Research Fellow in INFANT. Her research is part of the ELEVATE project, and is supervised by Professor Deirdre Murray, Professor Brian Walsh and Professor Geraldine Boylan.
Dr Molly Cremin
MD Title: Insights into the long-term effects of early systematic management of Atopic Dermatitis (AD) in children and the rates of food allergy/sensitisation post intervention.
Molly is a University of Limerick medical graduate and a Specialist Registrar in Paediatrics with the Royal College of Physicians Ireland (RCPI). She is currently an MD student at University College Cork and Clinical Research fellow in INFANT. Her research is part of the STOPAD project and is supervised by Dr Juan Trujillo and Professor Jonathan Hourihane .
Dr Aisling Fanning
MD Title: Standards in Investigative Methods for Brain Injury in the Newborn
Aisling is an MD student at University College Cork (UCC) and Clinical Research Fellow at INFANT. Her MD is supervised by Professor Brian Walsh, Professor Geraldine Boylan and Dr Andreea Pavel. Aisling is a Medical graduate of University College Dublin (UCD) and a Specialist Registrar in Neonatology with the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland (RCPI).
Ms Sarah Fenton
PhD Title: Health Technology Assessment of the New Model of Preterm Parenteral Nutrition in Ireland
Sarah is a Clinical Pharmacist in Cork University Hospital and Cork University Maternity Hospital, with a special interest in neonatal nutrition and healthcare informatics.
Optimal nutrition, in the first weeks of life, is of critical importance in preterm infants due to its direct impact on growth and neurodevelopment. Translational research over a decade by CUMH and UCC has developed an innovative data-driven parenteral nutrition model of care for preterm infants, now in use in all neonatal units in Ireland. Incremental innovation to include additional clinical decision support and a move from paper to a digital format is currently underway.
Sarah’s Employment Based PhD with the INFANT Centre will undertake a Health Technology Assessment, including the cost-effectiveness, acceptability, and affordability of this new model of care as it evolves.
Dr Aoife Gallagher
PhD Title: ARChhIE: A Retrospective Comparison of Irish and Spanish IgE- Mediated Egg Allergy Strategies
Egg allergy is the second most common food allergy in children and one of the main causes of anaphylaxis in infants. In many European countries standard practice for children with IgE-mediated egg allergy is total avoidance until 6-7 years of age. In Ireland reintroduction of egg to the diet is reached by most infants following home-based induction of egg protein via the egg ladder. The use of the egg ladder is relatively new, however appears to be a successful approach. The aim of this project is to critically examine its effectiveness and compare it to the more traditional management used across Europe. Should the egg ladder prove to be a preferable strategy we hope to promote it as an international standard management for IgE-mediated egg allergy in infants.
Mr Richard Harris
PhD Title: Connected Health Avenues for Adolescent Mental Health
The aim of this project is to review Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) with the aim of developing a connected health application to support the provision of these services.
Initial stages of the project will involve communication with the relevant stakeholders, including clinicians, policy makers and services users, to understand the needs of these groups. This will allow us to clearly identify the key requirements for this connect health application. This communication will take the form of focus groups, surveys and interviews, as well as any other relevant research methods that provide the appropriate level of academic rigor.
Following the identification of the key requirements, a design science research methodology will be employed to develop and test the application, with the end goal of creating an application that will best serve the needs of CHAMS. Publications are expected at various stages throughout the project.
Dr David Healy
PhD Title: PIMENTO – Preterm Infants: Microbiome Establishment, Neuro-crossTalk and Origins.
Dave is a medical graduate of University College Cork and is currently training as a Paediatric Specialist Registrar with a view to specialising in Neonatology.
The human microbiome is a rapidly expanding area of research which looks at the relationship between our health and the community of microbes that passively reside in and on us. Alteration in how this community is formed and structured may have long term impacts on an individual’s health.
Dave’s PhD looks to delve into the impact of prematurity and its associated management on the establishment of the intestinal microbiome and how this might relate to health outcomes. Working in conjunction with APC Microbiome Ireland and Teagasc, he hopes to clarify causes and impacts of dysbiosis in this vulnerable preterm population. Furthermore, novel analysis of gut-brain signalling in very preterm infants will attempt to determine whether intestinal dysbiosis may play a role in neurodevelopment of preterm babies.
Dr Elaine Kennedy
MD Title: Biomarkers of Evolving Paediatric Type 1 Diabetes
Elaine is a clinical research fellow in INFANT. Her area of interest is the development of Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) in children. Her MD is entitled 'Biomarkers of Evolving Paediatric T1D'. This research aims to identify novel gut microbes that are playing a role in T1D progression and control. The goal of this work is to identify new treatments that will slow down disease progression and improve diabetes control.
Dr Lisa Kiely
PhD Title: IMAGINE: Imaging Morphea – Advancements for DiAGnosis and INtensive Evaluation
Lisa graduated from Medicine in 2016 from the University of Limerick. She holds an honours Bachelor Degree (BSc) in physiology from University of Galway and a Master’s in clinical education from Queens University Belfast. She is a Dermatology Specialist Registrar with Royal College of Physicians of Ireland (RCPI) and Fellow of the Irish Clinical and Academic Training (ICAT) programme.
IMAGINE is a multi-centre longitudinal observational study of both adult and paediatric patients with Morphea (Localised scleroderma). Monitoring disease progression remains a key clinical challenge. Lisa’s PhD aims to explore novel objective methods of monitoring activity in Morphea using clinical scoring, cytokine analysis, multispectral imaging and machine learning techniques.
Ms Sonia Lenehan
PhD Title: The effect of environmental enrichment on neurodevelopment in term babies
Sonia Lenehan graduated from UCC in 2016 with a B. Sc (Hons) in Neuroscience. Sonia is currently a PhD research student with the INFANT centre since 2017. The title of her PhD is “The effect of environmental enrichment on neurodevelopment in term babies.” Her PhD will look at environmental enrichment, in the form of lifestyle and sensory experience, and its effect on the brain. Sonia will use eye-tracking as a way to asses social cognition in different groups of infants.
Mr Chris Lundy
PhD Title: Biomedical Signal Processing for Early Detection of Brain Injury in Preterm Infants
Chris' PhD involves using novel signal processing and machine learning methods to extract and combine pertinent information from near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) and electroencephalography (EEG) data collected by INFANT from preterm infants in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).
In developing automated biomedical signal analysis methods, the ultimate aim of this project is to aid in the early detection of brain injury in preterm infants.
Mr Fabio Magarelli
PhD Title: Machine Learning for the Prediction of Seizures in Neonates
Fabio is a PhD student at the Centre for Research Training in Artificial Intelligence and the Department of Paediatrics & Child Health, University College Cork. His research is in the field of EEG data analysis and applied Machine Learning (ML)which is a subfield of Artificial Intelligence applied to Medicine that is concerned with tools and techniques to produce diagnostic instruments for clinicians in the field of Paediatrics such as EEG abnormalities and patterns detection.
Dr Anne Murray
PhD Title: he SOPHIE Study: School-aged Outcomes Post Hypoxic Ischaemic Encephalopathy
Anne is a medical graduate of UCC. She is a Specialist Registrar in Neonatology, a PhD student at UCC and a Clinical Research Fellow in INFANT. Anne’s PhD is focused on examining school-aged outcomes after Hypoxic Ischaemic Encephalopathy, which affects 2 infants per 1000 births. Through psychological assessment and MRI imaging, her study aims to examine early neonatal clinical findings and their correlation with school-aged outcomes, to gain a better understanding of the long-term prognosis in HIE since the introduction of therapeutic hypothermia.
Dr Jurate Panaviene
PhD Title: Non-Invasive lung Oxygen Monitoring of Infants (The NIOMI Study)
Jurate Panaviene is a MD student at UCC and a Clinical Research Fellow at INFANT Centre. Her research project is about Non-invasive Lung Oxygen Monitoring In Term Infants (The NIOMI Study). It is a part of collaborative initiative between research teams at INFANT and Biophotonics@Tyndall. The current project is aiming to investigate a new optical system and it’s potential to provide continuous information on lung function of neonatal intensive care unit patients.
Dr Jacopo Proietti
PhD Title: Clinical And Neurophysiological Detection In asphyxiated neonates, aimed at Determining an Accurate selection for hypothermic Treatment in the Early neonatal period (The CANDIDATE Study)"
Jacopo is a MD specialist in Child Neuropsychiatry, trained in pediatric neurological disorders with particular interest in neonatal neurology and electrophysiological evaluation of epilepsy. His PhD research project is focusing on multimodal assessment of infants with Neonatal Hypoxic Ischaemic Encephalopathy during the earliest hours after birth, performed through video-EEG-polygraphy and simultaneous somatosensory evoked potentials combined with detailed neurological examination. This approach will potentially provide novel insights for the clinician and improve the ability to identify those infants who will benefit from early treatment. This is a collaborative project between the INFANT Research Centre and University of Verona (Italy).
Dr Cathal O'Connor
PhD Title: SPINDLE - Assessing SleeP IN infants with atopic Dermatitis by Longitudinal Evaluation
Cathal is a medical graduate of University College Cork (2013) and completed basic specialist training in both paediatric (2016) and adult (2018) medicine with the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland (RCPI). He is a Dermatology Specialist Registrar with RCPI and Fellow of the Irish Clinical and Academic Training (ICAT) programme.
Cathal's PhD will assess the sleep disruption seen in atopic dermatitis ('eczema') which affects 20% of Irish children. SPINDLE will recruit a cohort of infants with eczema and compare their sleep macrostructure and microstructure to a matched control group. This will be achieved by novel and thorough analysis of sleep quality and quantity and skin barrier and cytokine assessment.
Dr Iyshwarya Stapleton
PhD Title: A Longitudinal Observational Assessment of Diastolic Function during the Transitional Period and Infancy using Serial Echocardiography (The DiFuSE Study)
Iyshwarya is a medical graduate of UCC. She is currently a Specialist Registrar in Neonatology with the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland (RCPI), a PhD student at UCC and a Clinical Research Fellow with INFANT. Her areas of interest are neonatal haemodynamics and diastolic cardiac function. DiFuSE will assess diastolic function during the neonatal transitional period and long-term into infancy. This will be a prospective, single-centre, observational study on neonates born at 35 weeks’ gestation or above. The goal is to create reference values for diastolic function parameters and to assess the influence of pre-defined antenatal, intrapartum, maternal, and neonatal factors on cardiac function.
Dr Carol Stephens
PhD Title: SYNAPSE- EpilepSY After NeoNAtal ElectrograPhic Seizures
Carol is a paediatric SpR with the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland (RCPI) and currently a Clinical Research Fellow with INFANT. Her area of interest is post neonatal epilepsy. SYNAPSE aims to determine the incidence of post-neonatal epilepsy in term infants who went electrographic monitoring in the neonatal period due to high risk of seizures. It will further evaluate if neonatal seizure(NS) aetiology and seizure burden are related to post neonatal epilepsy and if NS characteristics are related to post neonatal seizure type. SYNPASE will also evaluate what risk factors give rise to future epilepsy in those infants with no electrographic seizures.
This will be a retrospective, single centre, observational study and infants will be recruited from previous studies since 2003 with INFANT. In our centre, the neonatal unit, paediatric department and neurophysiology departments are tri-located offering us the unique opportunity to determine the true incidence of post neonatal epilepsy in Irish children.
Mr Conor Vaughan
PhD Title: Neurospecific Biomarkers for Newborn Brain Injury
Conor completed a BSc in Biochemistry at University College Cork in 2023 and an MSc in Clinical and Diagnostic Biochemistry at University College Dublin in 2024. His project will focus on what biomarkers may have the potential to be brought into clinical care for the early prediction of Cerebral Palsy.
Ms Soraia Ventura
PhD Title: Electroencephalographic Study of the Effect of Massage on Infant Sleep
Soraia's background is in Neurophysiology and her main interests are within the area of Electroencephalography. After gaining relevant experience in the clinical field, Soraia is currently working on the Electroencephalographic Study of the Effect of Massage on Infant Sleep and is supervised by Prof Geraldine Boylan and Dr Sean Mathieson.
Parent-led baby massage is known to provide environmental enrichment through tactile stimulation and bonding between babies and their parents. We aim to test if routine parent-led massage during the first four months of life may be associated with brain development. Our study participants were split into two groups soon after birth: routine massage (intervention) and non-massage (controls). Using EEG at four months of age, I am studying sleep spindles which are brain maturational markers measured during specific stages of sleep. We will compare these between intervention and control groups.
This study will also be the largest to describe sleep spindles in detail during this critical stage of development.