Following my PhD in Organic & Analytical Chemistry at SETU (2011) I conducted postdoctoral research in UCC where I was responsible for set-up, coordination of installation and training on Waters Triple Quadrupole and Quadrupole Time-of-Flight LC-MS instruments as well as method development and liaising with biological and medical researchers and PIs. I successfully applied LC-MS to a number of novel bioanalyses including serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D measurement (traceable to NIST higher order reference method), obesity trials in mice analysing bile acid profiles, ethanolamine analysis in urine and protein and peptide analysis in milk powders metabolomics and identification of unknown compounds and bioactives.

In June 2013, I re-joined SETU where I provided technical assistance and subsequently was appointed programme manager on two European funded training and research projects, simultaneously  worked on a number of industrial research projects and was Co-PI on an EI innovation partnership project investigating the extraction of high value compounds from animal by-products. I commenced a lecturing role in September 2014 and have been heavily involved in module development and course validation of the MSc in Analytical Science programme at WIT. I am Programme leader of this Masters programme at SETU Waterford. More recently, I have worked as insitutional coordinator for SETU Waterford on the EU-CONEXUS EU University for Smart Urban Coastal Sustainability, on which SETU are a partner. My role here is multifaceted, from student engagement, student mobility, curriculum development, joint programme development as well as development of new research collaborations for multiple staff across SETU into the EU-CONEXUS european network

Research Interests

My research interests lie in organic chemistry, in sustainable methods of producing organic compounds via green chemistry. I am also interested in novel analytical characterisation techniques including LC-MS for analytical and bioanalytical analysis including unknown compound identification, quantitation, metabolomics and proteomics. I am current chairperson of the Irish Mass Spectrometry Society (IMSS) and have a wide network in the mass spectrometry community in Ireland in academia and industry. I have also worked in collaboration with local pharmaceutical companies assisting them with training and troubleshooting their LC-MS systems. I am also interested in adding value to aquatic waste products following circular economy principles to access functional compounds.