The Researcher of the Year (IRC legacy) Awards have been formally announced today by Research Ireland.
Congratulations to UCD School of Medicine’s Professor Alistair Nichol who was Highly Commended in the 2024 Researcher of the Year category. Prof Nichol is Chair of Critical Care Medicine in UCD, the Director of the Irish Critical Care- Clinical Trails Network and Consultant in St Vincent’s University Hospital, Dublin.
In August 2024, the Irish Research Council (IRC) amalgamated with Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) to become Taighde Éireann – Research Ireland, the new national funding agency for research and innovation in Ireland.
The awards celebrated the very best of IRC-funded researchers deemed to have made highly significant and valuable contributions to knowledge, society, culture and innovation, selected by an independent expert panel chaired by Professor Emeritus Áine Hyland.
UCD Vice-President for Research, Innovation and Impact, Professor Kate Robson Brown said: "We are immensely proud of the excellence, dedication and talent exhibited every year by UCD's research community, both our academics at every career stage and our highly skilled and committed research support staff. I'd like to offer my sincere congratulations to all who were recognised in the 2024 Researcher of the Year (IRC Legacy) Awards, especially Savannah Devine, on being awarded the Jane Grimson Medal of Excellence as the highest ranked STEM candidate in the Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship scheme, and all of the Research Allies who support the university’s research and contribute hugely to its success. Congratulations also to our highly commended academics, Alistair Nichol, Stefan Muller and William Gallagher, all of whose work is thoroughly deserving of the highest recognition."
Christine Casey, Professor of Architectural History at Trinity College Dublin, was named 2024 Researcher of the Year. Alistair Nichol, Professor of Critical Care Medicine at UCD, and Seamus Martin, Smurfit Professor of Molecular Genetics in TCD, were Highly Commended.
Dr Aaron Lim, Lecturer in Marine Geosciences from University College Cork, was named 2024 Early Career Researcher of the Year. Dr Stefan Müller, Associate Professor at UCD School of Politics and International Relations, and Dr Mary Canavan, Assistant Professor in Immunology in TCD, were Highly Commended.
The Impact Award recipient is Dr Jakub Gajewski, Research Programme Director, Institute of Global Surgery in RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences. William Gallagher, Professor of Cancer Biology at UCD School of Biomolecular and Biomedical Science and UCD Conway Institute, and Esther Murphy, Research Fellow and DigiAcademy Founder in TCD, were Highly Commended.
The top-ranked researchers from the prestigious early career programme, Government of Ireland scheme, were also recognised. The programme is one of the largest funding schemes supporting early career researchers in Ireland and the awarded medals recognise excellence in the 2024 Government of Ireland postgraduate and postdoctoral funding calls in the arts, humanities and social sciences (AHSS), and science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).
PhD candidate Savannah Devine was awarded the Jane Grimson Medal of Excellence as the highest ranked STEM candidate. Savannah is a PhD candidate supervised by Associate Professor Eoghan Holohan and Associate Professor Claire Harnett at UCD School of Earth Sciences. Her PhD focuses on improving numerical models of the collapse dynamics of caldera volcanoes, in order to understand how their collapse influences the generation of earthquakes and progress of eruptions. Savannah sits in the UCD Geohazards research group led by Holohan and Harnett.
Peter Brown, Director, Researcher Development in Research Ireland congratulated the awardees: “The researchers being honoured today have demonstrated excellence in their many achievements within and beyond their disciplines. The awardees are wonderful examples of those that have gone above and beyond to bring new knowledge and understandings to the fore. At different stages in their research journey, they are enriching their respective fields and Ireland’s research and innovation system. Across the humanities, science and medicine, the awardees are contributing to a better, healthier, more sustainable and more culturally enriched world, benefiting us all.”
Congratulations to all those announced.
Read more about the awards at https://www.researchireland.ie/news/2024-irc-legacy-awards/