06 December 2019
The annual Bernal Institute Research Day took place at the University of Limerick, Thursday 05 December. The event opened with a session on “Career Development with Industry after PhD” and featured candid talks from Dr Robert Gunning, Intel, Dr Catriona O’Sullivan, Analog, Dr Triona O’Connell Beckton Dickinson, Dr Gary O’Flynn, Boston Scientific, and Dr John Hourigan, Regeneron
The speakers shared their experiences on making the switch form Academia to Industry, Flexibility was a common theme among them, as all regarded diversity, broadness of projects and ability to collaborate as key reasons to work in industry after a PhD.
Professor Mike Zaworotko, Dr Rana Sanii, Dr Victoria Gascon Perez & Dr Soumya Mukherjee from the Crystal Engineering group delivered the keynote address on meeting global challenges in health energy and environment by developing new materials with better properties and applications that are commercially viable.
The day included a celebration of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions at UL with insights from MSCA fellows Ibrahim Saana Aminu,Arash Kia and Bernard Stenson, Analog Devices.
Dr Des Fitzgerald, UL President paid tribute to Ireland’s First Perfect Scoring Marie Curie Fellow, Mehakpreet Singh, a member of Professor Gavin Walker’s group based at the Bernal Institute. Bernal launched two Marie-Curie Innovative Training Networks (ITN) projects, one with Dr Sarah Hudson and Dr Luis Padrela, the second was with Professor JJ Leahy and Dr Anne Marie Henihan.
Bernal Institute Research Day 2019 Awardees are;
Thesis in Three 1st Aoibhin Ryan €500 –
2nd Philip Poillot €300
3rd Ahmad Ziaee €200
Best Research Poster, 1st Joseph Mooney €300
2nd Amira Mahdi €200
3rd Rob Lehane €100
Best Scientific Image, 1st Umadevi Ghorpade €100
2nd Leila Keshararz
3rd Miriama Ceresnakova
Best Research Illustration, 1st Shiqiang Wang €100
2nd Corne Muilwijk
3rd Amira Mahdi
Best Safety Initiative, Edel Durack €150, Patrick Cronin €150
Research Leader, Professor Gavin Walker
Senior Researcher, Dr Maurice Collins
Early Career Research, Dr Hugh Geaney
Congratulations to all our winners.