Bernal Research Day, Sustainable Futures in Career, Research and Science

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,             1^st 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.