Executive Management Committee

Alistair is the Chair and Professor of Critical Care Medicine in University College Dublin (UCD), the Chair of the Irish Critical Care-Clinical Trials Group (ICC-CTG), Director of the HRB Irish Critical Care- Clinical Trials Network (HRB ICC-CTN), Dept Director of the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care-Research Centre (ANZIC- RC), Monash University, Melbourne and an Honorary Research Fellow, School of Tropical Medicine, University of Oxford.

Alistair is a senior clinical intensivist, laboratory scientist and clinical trialist. Alistair and his collaborators have successfully completed a number of important trials and epidemiological studies (enrolled over 10,000 patients in the last 10 years), including during the H1N1 2009 pandemic (900 patients) published in the NEJM, an RCT of Erythropoietin in traumatic brain injury (606 patients) published in the Lancet (first author-joint). Furthermore he is a Work Package leader of a European Union FP-7 project, which is charged with examining the challenges of conducting interventional studies in critically ill patients throughout Europe.This project is examining embedding of research into clinical practise, examining the acceptability and understanding of consent process used in the critically ill. To date Professor Nichol’s collaborations have been awarded over €35,000,000 in research funding. This has included an award for TRANSFUSE (HRB Definative Intervention award) published in the NEJM this year (5000 patients, first author-joint) and a Clinical Trial Network Award (Improving outcomes in the critically ill) from the Health Research Board of Ireland.

Dr Frances Shiely qualified with a BA from the University of Limerick in 1998 and a PhD degree in Epidemiology in 2003. She was recently awarded a Masters in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education from UCC (2017). She was appointed as Lecturer in Epidemiology and Public Heath in UCC in 2005 and is currently a Senior Lecturer, jointly appointed to the School of Public Health and the HRB Clinical Research Facility. Frances is a member of the BSc Public Health Sciences Executive Committee which leads on curricular development and the implementation of the degree programme. She is also one of the core teaching faculty for the degree on which she has taught since her appointment in 2005. She has also taught on the MPH, Dental MPH, MA Gerontology and the undergraduate medical programme. Frances was appointed as Education lead for the HRB CRF-C in 2015 and is co-PI and UCC lead on the HRB Trials Methodology Research Network Grant. She currently supervises 5 PhD students and has extensive experience supervising MPH and undergraduate projects. Frances has two main research interests: clinical trial methodology and physical activity and diet related research for the prevention of disease.

Prof. Peter Doran earned his BSc. from Dublin City University in 1998 and his PhD from University College Dublin in 2001. He is associate professor at the UCD School of Medicine, Director of the Ireland East Hospital Group research network and Scientific Director of the UCD Clinical Research Centre (CRC). The clinical research, directed by Prof Doran, helps discover ways to improve medical care and to establish new treatments which in turn will improve the quality of life for patients who are living daily with chronic illness. The CRC contributes to ongoing research creating a scientific and caring culture for the benefit of present and future patients and medical research contributes to the development of new cures and better treatments. Prof Doran also leads the UCD-Abbott Biomarker programme, which has established a high throughput biomarker validation laboratory, which is contributing to major national and international end organ damage biomarker studies, reflecting his research interests in the molecular drivers of organ damage, biomarker discovery and translation to practice. In addition to his research and leadership roles, Prof Doran also leads the graduate taught programme in clinical and translational research at UCD and Chairs the Biomedical research Degrees Committee at the UCD School of Medicine.

Linda has 20 years’ experience using qualitative research to explore a range of health and social questions. A midwife and qualitative researcher by training, Linda’s research focuses largely in the fields of maternity care; methodological research using qualitative and quantitative evidence synthesis, and the application of qualitative methodologies to inform trials, trial methodology and core outcome set development. Linda is passionate about understanding how we help people, and children in particular, to learn how to recognise and assess health claims and has led two projects within the HRB-TRMNs suite of public engagement activities (an evaluation of the HRB-TMRN START initiative and contextualising the Informed Health Choices for use in primary schools in Ireland). She is also a member of the research teams of PRIORITY II; The People’s Trial; the Encounter Study (Recruiters Experiences of Recruiting Pregnant Women to Clinical Trials); COHESION (Core Outcomes in Neonatal Encephalopathy); COS development of the INSPIRE Research Group; the MILO Study (Membrane sweeping to prevent post-term pregnancy); the QUALShare Project (Qualitative data sharing practices in clinical trials in the UK and Ireland); The MERIT Project (Minority ExpeRiences In Trials); and Qualitative Evidence Syntheses focusing on recruitment to trials. Linda is an active member of the Trial Conduct Working Group (Qualitative Research in Trials, and Recruitment to Trials Strands) of the MRC-NIHR Trials Methodology Research Partnership (TMRP) and a Research Advisor with the Qualitative Research in Trials Centre (QUESTS). Linda represents QUESTS on the HRB-TMRN’s Executive Committee.

Valerie is a Professor in Midwifery at the School of Nursing and Midwifery, Trinity College Dublin, and a registered General Nurse, Midwife and Clinical Nurse Teacher. Valerie’s research interests extend to all areas of maternity care and healthcare research methods, with specific topic expertise in the areas of assessing fetal wellbeing (fetal heart rate monitoring and fetal movements) and intrapartum care. Valerie’s areas of methodological research expertise include systematic reviews, randomised trials, core outcome set development and survey research, and she has experience in qualitative research methods. Valerie is a senior Cochrane Ireland systematic review trainer, a member of the Executive Committee of the HRB-Trials Methodology Research Network, a member of the Steering Committee of Evidence Synthesis Ireland and was a member of a previous EU COST Action (ISO907) Childbirth Cultures, Concerns and Consequences, Creating a Dynamic EU Framework for Optimal Maternity Care).

Born too many years ago in Ayr, Scotland, Derek was treated successfully for throat cancer in 1995. A former teacher, Derek worked with young people experiencing difficulties in adjusting to mainstream education in Glasgow then Nottinghamshire where he now lives. He subsequently became actively involved in numerous aspects of patient involvement and advocacy at a local, national and international level being the founder Chair of the Consumer Liaison Group for the National Cancer Research Institute, UK. Derek’s connection with methodology research is based on his interest in making all studies as efficient, relevant and effective as possible. In 2020 Derek was appointed Honorary Professor at National University of Ireland, Galway. Recently Derek has been co-chairing the UK Health Research Authority (HRA) #MakeItPublic Campaign Group on Research Transparency. He is also a Non-Exec Director for the ISRCTN Registry.

Dr Katie Robinson is Senior Lecturer in Occupational Therapy and lead of the Ageing Research Centre at the University of Limerick. Katie qualified with a BSc Occupational Therapy from Trinity College Dublin in 2000, and holds an MSc in Disability Management from UCD and a PhD in Occupational Therapy from the University of Limerick. Katie has been a member of the MSc Occupational Therapy professional qualification program at the University of Limerick for the past 18 years. Katie is interested in ageing research, rehabilitation intervention development and qualitative methods. Katie is currently supervising PhD students focusing on, emergency department care transitions of older adults, early supported discharge after stroke, age attuned hospital care for older adults, allied health led care transition interventions and diet quality among people living with Cystic Fibrosis. Katie has been deeply involved in establishing a Public and Patient Involvement stakeholder panel of older adults at the University of Limerick. Katie is interested in measuring what matters to older adults in intervention research, and she is currently leading a HRB funded study to develop a Core Outcome Set for research with older adults in the Emergency Department.

Professor Lowery’s research focuses predominantly on breast cancer and endocrine cancer, with a translational science approach enhanced by her closely aligned clinical subspecialty interest in breast and endocrine surgery. Her ongoing work on these themes investigates factors that drive tumour intitation and locoregional disease recurrence and the implications that molecular heterogeneity of malignancy may have on surgical strategy.  Her research interests also include the investigation of innovative methods for post malignancy breast reconstruction using adipose derived stem cells.