Chemistry-Dónal Leech

Director: Biomolecular Electronics Research Laboratory

My research and teaching interests focus on bioanalytical chemistry, with an emphasis on electrochemical methods, surface modification and characterisation, sensors, assays and fuel cells. The research group consists of undergraduate, PhD graduate, post-doctoral, Senior Research Fellow and visiting  personnel.

A recent photo of the group, right, features Amani Ibrahim (4th year project student), Peter Connolly and Raghavulu Sapireddy on the back row, with Partha Jana, Isioma Osadebe, Dónal Leech, Rakesh Kumar and Paul Kavanagh on the front row.

For more information on teaching and research, navigate to the relevant pages using the left-hand sidebar. Contact details are provided in the footnote.

Biographical Sketch

• NIHED (now DCU): B.Sc. in Analytical Science, 1988
• Dublin City University: Ph.D (M.R. Smyth and J.G Vos with visit to J. Wang in NMSU, now at Univ. of San Diego), 1991 
• University of Hawaii: Post-doctoral researcher (G.A. Rechnitz), 1991
• Université de Montréal: Assistant Professor,1993
• NUI Galway: Lecturer/Senior Lecturer/Professor, 1997-present
• Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris: Visiting Academic (C. Amatore), 2003
• University of New South Wales, Sydney: Senior Visitor (J.J. Gooding), 2009
• Canterbury University, Christchurch, NZ: RSC JWT Jones Visiting Fellow (A. Downard), 2009

Other Information

• Chartered Chemist
• Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry & Institute of Chemistry of Ireland
• Member RSC, ICI, Electrochemistry Society (US), Bioelectrochemistry Society and International Society of Electrochemistry
• Course Director for 2nd year Physical Chemistry

News

November 2012

Dr. Raghavulu Sapireddy joins the group from IICT in Hyderabaad (via Sweden), funded through a prestigious Irish Research Council post-doctoral fellowship.

July 2012

Isioma Osadebe, one of our first NUI Galway graduates in Biopharmaceutical Chemistry, has joined the group as a MSc researcher.

March 2012

Welcome to Rakesh Kumar, who joins the group as a PhD student (via UCC).

February 2012

Congratulations to both Joanna Hajdukiewicz and Saravanan Rengaraj who are Dr. of Chemistry graduates (PhD!). 

March 2011

Best wishes to Krishna and Sirisha, who left the group and are on their way to KAUST in Saudi Arabia.

December 2010-January 2011

Congratulations to both Vincent Bonifay and Peter Jenkins, who passed all stages of the PhD process and can now put Dr. before their name, and best wishes to Tunc who departs from the group.

August 2010

Best wishes to Saro and Chandra, who are to be wed this month.

August also sees the departure of Marisa Ferrer, returning to Madrid, after her year-long sabbatical in the research group. Whilst it is sad to see Marisa (and Paco and their family) leave, we hope to host them again sometime soon, and to continue the research collaboration.

July 2010

National recognition in the USA on NBC, for research advances in the group of Prof. Jim Rusling on the detection of biomarkers for early diagnosis of cancer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk9azig22M4

Prof. Rusling, based at the University of Connecticut is  adjunct professor in NUIG, following his SFI Walton-funded visit in 2008-2009. Jim is a regular visitor to the School of Chemistry and maintains a research collaboration with the Biomolecular Electronics Research Laboratory. For example, second year PhD student in BERL, Saro, has just returned from a 2 month visit to Jim’s group in UConn.

Congratulations to Peter Connolly, 1st year PhD student in BERL, on his award for the best poster at the 62nd Irish Universities Chemistry Research Colloquium, held at Queen’s University Belfast  July 1^st to 2^nd 2010. 

Right is a photo of proud Peter in front of his winning poster, titled "Enzymatic Fuel Cells".

June 2010

Congratulations to Dr. Paul Kavanagh who was awarded the prize for the best oral presentation at the Joint ECI-MRI research day in June. Paul presented an engaging overview of our research on biosensors and biopower. For more, and pictures, see the ECI-MRI news page http://www.nuigalway.ie/eci/news_events/events.html.

On the right is Paul, being awarded the prize by Sean Duke, editor of Spin science magazine.

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