Principal Investigators

Prof. Fiona Regan – MESTECH Director

Fiona Regan studied Environmental Science and Technology at the Institute of Technology in Sligo and graduated in 1991. She obtained her PhD in Analytical chemistry in 1994, at Dublin City University (DCU). Following her PhD she carried out Postdoctoral research in the physics Department of DCU. On completion of the postdoctoral research programme she took up a position at Limerick Institute of Technology as lecturer in Environmental and Analytical Science in 1996. In 2002 returned to the School of Chemical Sciences, DCU, as a lecturer in analytical chemistry and in 2008 she was promoted to Senior Lecturer.

There she has an active research group in the area of separations and sensors for environmental application. Her group (Analytical Environmental Research Group (AER) currently consists of 13 researchers. In 2009 she was promoted to Associate Professor in Environmental Sensing and is PI of the Beaufort Marine Sensing Programme at DCU.

Prof. Dermot Diamond

Dermot Diamond received his Ph.D. and D.Sc. from Queen’s University Belfast (Chemical Sensors, 1987, Internet Scale Sensing, 2002), and was VP for Research at Dublin City University (2002-2004). He has published over 200 peer-reviewed papers in international journals, is a named inventor in 13 patents, and is co-author and editor of three books. He is currently director of the National Centre for Sensor Research (www.ncsr.ie) at Dublin City university, and a Principle Investigator in CLARITY (www.clarity-centre.com/), a major research initiative focused on wireless sensor networks. In 2002 he was awarded the inaugural silver medal for Sensor Research by the Royal Society of Chemistry, London and in 2006 he received the DCU President’s Award for research excellence. Details of his research can be found at www.dcu.ie/chemistry/asg.

Prof. Alan Smeaton

Alan Smeaton is Professor of Computing in DCU and Deputy Director of CLARITY. His early work focussed on text-based information retrieval then moved to information retrieval of images and then video and lately sensor information. He has graduated more than 25 PhD and M.Sc. research students and currently leads a team of 16 researchers at postdoctoral and PhD levels. He is a member of the editorial boards of 5 journals and has published almost 300 refereed papers/book chapters/proceedings.

He has 6 patents and has won significant grant income from national and international funding agencies and from industry. Alan Smeaton’s research is around the topic of information retrieval (IR) and has covered the application of natural language analysis to IR, fast implementation of IR, IR from spoken databases (radio news), IR from hypertexts, IR across different languages (text documents) and IR from image databases.

His current research is around information retrieval from very large collections of digital video, IR from genomic databases, IR from music databases (melody retrieval) and IR from linked and structured collections, including web search engines.

Prof. Noel O’Connor

Noel E. O’Connor is currently an Associate Professor in the School of Electronic Engineering at DCU and a Principal Investigator in CLARITY. Prof. O’Connor’s research interests are in audio-visual (AV) analysis for content-based information retrieval. He has published over 160 peer-reviewed publications, made 11 standards submissions, filed 5 patents, edited 6 journal special issues and spun off a campus company. He has graduated 12 PhD students and has acted as an expert reviewer for a number of EU projects, as well as an expert evaluator for EU FP6 and FP7. He is a member of IEEE, Engineers Ireland and the IET.

Prof. Richard O’Kennedy

Prof. Richard O’Kennedy has a B.Sc. in Biochemistry and a P.hD. in Tumour Biochemistry/Immunology from UCD. In 1980 he joined DCU as a lecturer in Biochemistry and was a founding member of the University and the School of Biological Sciences. He became a senior lecturer in 1987. In 1989 he became head of the School of Biological Sciences (now the school of Biotechnology) and Professor in 1993. He has played a major role in the development of new schools such as Nursing and Sports and has developed courses including, Biotechnology, Analytical Science, Science Communication and Medical Mechanical Engineering. He is the current Vice President for Learning Innovation. He is internationally recognised for his contributions in relation to antibody production and applications. Prof. O’Kennedy is the current Vice President for Learning Innovation at DCU.

Dr. Blanaid White

Blánaid White completed her PhD in Analytical Chemistry in 2005 in Dublin City University. After carrying out postdoctoral research in the University of Kansas, she returned to DCU as a research group leader, before taking up a lecturing position in the School of Chemical Sciences. In 2009 she was joint winner of the DCU President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching and Learning for New Lecturers/Postgraduate Tutors. Blánaid’s research interests include the application of analytical separation and detection techniques for the investigation of biochemical processes, utilising both analytical chemistry (HPLC, CE, MS) and biochemistry (FACS, Comet), investigating the role of metals (e.g. iron and copper) in initiation and propagation of oxidative stress, leading to mutagenesis, neurological diseases and aging, and the development of chromatographic stationary phases using novel monolithic polymers to develop tunable stationary phases. She is an invited participant on the European Standards Committee for Urinary Lesion Analysis.

Dr. Kieran Nolan

BSc – 1989 York University Canada PhD – 1996 York University 1996-1997 Research Chemist Novopharm Lmt. Toronto Canada. 1997-1998 Lead Formulation Chemist Chemlan Chemicals Toronto/South Carolina 1998-2001 Research Associate DCU/NCSR 2001- Lecturer School of Chemical Sciences DCU.

Dr. Stephen Daniels

Stephen Daniels holds B.Eng in Electronic Engineering from DCU and a PhD from DCU earned while studying abroad at IMEC, Belgium and Philips Research, The Netherlands. He spent 8 years with Applied Materials, where he held a number of senior positions including Metallisation Technologist for Northern Europe and Global Cluster Team Manager. Following this he spent 3 years with Scientific Systems as Head of Research and Development, developing and marketing their flagship plasma process control product. Following this he spent a year at University College Dublin as manager of the Centre for Materials and Manufacturing Technology. In April 2004, he joined the Dept. of Electronic Engineering, DCU and in July 2005 was appointed Executive Director of the National Centre for Plasma Science and Technology. Dr. Daniels has founded several highly successful technology companies and in 2006 Dr. Daniels was the winner of the Mallin Invent Award for Innovation. Dr. Daniels has extensive management experience. He has led and managed large groups of highly qualified staff and on many occasions successfully led and completed large complex international projects.

Dr. Brian Kelleher

August 2005; Lecturer, School of Chemical Sciences, DCU. Feb. 2004 to July 2005; Postdoc. with Dr Andre Simpson, Dept. of Physical and Environmental Sciences, University of Toronto. Set-up and method development of advanced analytical hyphenated methods: Liquid Chromatography (LC)- Mass Spectroscopy (MS)-Solid Phase Extraction (SPE)- Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR). July 2002- Feb. 2004; Postdoctoral Researcher with Prof. William Kingery, Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, Mississippi State University. Catalytic activity of enzymes immobilised on organo-minerals. Characterisation of organic/inorganic component of deep-sea sediments associated with gas hydrates. Feb. 2001-July 2002; Project Manager for an EPA (Ireland) funded research project that resulted in a successful demonstration of the fluidised bed combustion of animal waste to produce heat and electricity. 1997-2001: PhD. Dr Tom O’Dwyer, development of sorbents for organic compounds, University of Limerick.

Dr. Yann Delauré

Dr. Yann Delauré is a lecturer in the School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering at Dublin City University (DCU), Ireland. He received his PhD from the National University of Ireland, University College Cork in 2001. Before joining DCU he worked for a period of five years as a research engineer at the Hydraulics and Maritime Research Centre in Cork until 2001 and held a one year post-doctoral research position at Trinity College Dublin in 2002. His research interests include computational modelling of multi fluid flows with a particular focus on energy systems and environmental processes. This work relies on High Performance computing and involves in-house code development as well the use of commercial and open source CFD codes. He has co-authored 19 articles in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings and has been granted two Individual Marie Curie Fellowships and one IRCSET Basic Research Grant. He is currently a collaborator on a SFI 2009 Research Frontier Project.

Dr Aoife Morrin

Aoife Morrin studied Applied Sciences at Dublin Institute of Technology and graduated in 2000. She obtained her PhD in electroanalytical chemistry in 2004 at Dublin City University (DCU). Following her PhD she gained post-doctoral experience both at the National Centre for Sensor Research at DCU and the University of Wollongong, Australia. On completion of her post-doctoral fellowship, she took up an academic position in the School of Chemical Sciences at DCU as lecturer in Environmental and Analytical Science in 2008. She has an active research group in multi-disciplinary areas including functional nanomaterials, electrochemical sensor platforms for point-of-care diagnostics and environmental analysis, microfluidics for chromatographic applications and ink formulation and printing to enable and drive the area of printed electronics.

Dr Morrin’s field of research encompasses electroanalytical device development for environmental and biomedical applications. Specifically, her work entails developing materials with improved performances due, for example, to nanostructuring or via compositing.