Leagan Gaeilge   Text Version   Display: Zoom (-) (+)   View ( Normal High contrast ) Printer Friendly  A to Z  Sitemap

Awards and Prizes

This page lists some of the international, national and university awards that students and staff of the Department have received in recognition of their work.

2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003  | 2001 | 1990-2000

IRCSET Embark Scholars

 2012

Biomedical Engineering Researchers win top prizes at the 18th Annual BINI Conference, 2012

 

Two Biomedical Engineering researchers and a lecturer from the Department of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering have been awarded prizes for their research presentations at the Annual Bioengineering in Ireland (BINI) conference held on 27^th January 2012. Bioengineering in Ireland is the Annual Conference of the Section of Bioengineering of the Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland. It is now established as one of Ireland's longest-running and most active research conferences in engineering and science. Conleth Mullen, a PhD student from Dr. Laoise McNamara’s research group, won Third Prize for Established Student Researcher Presentation for his talk entitled “Experimental and Computational Investigation into Mechanotransduction in Osteocytes”. Dr. Ted Vaughan, a Postdoctoral researcher also from Dr. Laoise McNamara’s research group, shared first prize in the Mature researcher category for his presentation “Bone as a Composite Material: A Multiscale Perspective”. The other winner in this category was Dr. Nathan Quinlan, a Senior lecturer in Biomedical Engineering from NUIGalway, for his presentation “Towards Meshfree Computational Modelling of Biomedical Flow”.  Pictured are Biomedical Engineering researchers Dr. Ted Vaughan and Conleth Mullen with their awards from the 18th Annual BINI Conference, 2012.

Biomedical Engineering PhD student wins NUI Travelling Studentship

         

Biomedical Engineering PhD student Eimear Dolan has recently been awarded the National University of Ireland Graduate Travelling Studentship. The awards were presented by Dr Maurice Manning, the Chancellor of the National University of Ireland at a ceremony in the Royal Hospital Kilmainham. This prestigious scholarship is designed to promote NUI postgraduate students to conduct aspects of their research abroad, and upon their return enrich the learning community within NUI. The studentship dates from 1910 and Eimear is one of five recipients of the national award offered in the sciences in 2011. Eimear from Claremorris, Co. Mayo, is undertaking her PhD studies in collaboration with Stryker Instruments at the National Centre of Biomedical Engineering Science (NCBES) at NUI Galway, under the supervision of Dr. Laoise McNamara. The aim of her research is to advance the understanding of the effects of surgical orthopaedic cutting on cell and tissue integrity to optimise post-operative bone repair. These studies will inform the design of surgical instrumentation that can enhance post-surgical healing, minimise patient recovery time and revisions required, thus greatly reduce healthcare costs. This studentship will involve collaborations with leading researchers in the field, whose centres are based in foreign universities, such as Professor Glen Niebur at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA. Pictured is Eimear Dolan with Dr Maurice Manning, the Chancellor of the National University of Ireland, receiving her award at the NUI awards ceremony in the Royal Hospital Kilmainham

Four Biomedical Engineering PhD students awarded SFI Travel Fellowships

Four Biomedical Engineering PhD students have been awarded Short Term Travel Fellowships (STTF) from Science Foundation Ireland (SFI). Paul Gunning, a 2^nd year PhD student supervised by Dr. Laoise McNamara, will travel to the internationally renowned Cardiovascular Fluid Mechanics (CFM) research group in Georgia Institute of Technology. During his visit Paul will further his research in the area of minimally invasive heart valves, in collaboration with Medtronic Cardiovascular, by conducting experiments that will provide data to develop preclinical design tools to inform the design of the next generation of minimally invasive transcatheter heart valves. Evelyn Birmingham, a PhD student under the supervision of Professor Peter McHugh and Dr. Laoise McNamara, will travel to the laboratory of Professor Glen Niebur at Notre Dame. Evelyn will conduct research on the importance of the biomechanical and biochemical microenvironment of the stem cell niche for osteogenic differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells. Two PhD students from Dr. Patrick McGarry’s group, Enda Dowling and Will Ronan, have been awarded STTF awards to travel to University of California Davis and Santa Barbara respectively. Enda Dowling will work with Prof. Kyriacos Athanasiou on the role of shear and compressive deformation on the biomechanical behaviour of cartilage cells. Micro-scale mechanical test machines will be used to apply precise loading patterns to single cells and will provide a novel insight into the role of mechanical loading in the remodelling of sub-cellular structures. William Ronan will work with Prof. Robert McMeeking to develop a computational framework to predict the active response of biological cells to the mechanical properties of their surroundings. Such advanced biomechanical modelling has immense potential for tissue engineering and control of cellular function. In addition to these four outgoing fellowships, Dr. Laoise McNamara has been awarded an SFI Travel Fellowship for an incoming PhD student, Thomas Coughlin, from the University of Notre Dame. Together these awards represent a considerable investment of approximately €60,000 by SFI into these activities. The generation of high impact factor publications through these prestigious international collaborations will be of great benefit to Biomedical Engineering at NUI Galway and will further establish the international profile of the College of Engineering and Informatics and the University.

 

2011

NUI Galway Biomedical Engineering Student wins the prestigious Engineers Ireland Innovative Student Engineer Award for her final year project

               

Fiona Griffin, an Undergraduate student in Biomedical Engineering at NUI Galway, has won first prize in the Innovative Student Engineer Awards 2011. This is an annual competition run by Engineers Ireland and sponsored by Siemens. This is an outstanding achievement for Fiona and for NUI Galway, as this prize is open to all Engineering undergraduates from all third level institutions in Ireland and Fiona was one of only 5 finalists chosen to compete at the national finals. Fiona’s project involved designing a realistic 3D model of a heart valve to facilitate testing of an interventional medical device known as the transcatheter valve prosthesis. Her project was supervised by Dr. Laoise McNamara of the Discipline of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering, within the College of Engineering and Informatics, and was carried out in conjunction with Medtronic. Pictured are Dr. Laoise McNamara, Lecturer in Biomedical Engineering at NUI Galway, Fiona Griffin, winner of the Innovative Student Engineer Awards 2011, and Professor Peter McHugh, Professor of Biomedical Engineering at NUI Galway.

Prof. Peter McHugh - Member of the Royal Irish Academy  Professor Peter McHugh is one of three NUI Galway academics elected this year to membership of The Royal Irish Academy (RIA) in recognition of their academic achievement in education and research. Professor McHugh, of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering, joins the ranks of Ernest Walton, Erwin Schrödinger, Seamus Heaney and Mary Robinson by becoming a Member of the RIA. (Back row) NUI Galway’s Professor Colin O’Dowd, Professor Peter McHugh, and Professor Donal O’Regan, (front row) NUI Galway President Dr James J. Browne and President of the Royal Irish Academy, Professor Luke Drury. NUI Galway President, Dr James J. Browne, commented: “Research and academic excellence are the cornerstones of all that we do here at NUI Galway. My colleagues’ attainment of what is the highest academic honour in Ireland is testament to the calibre of our staff and research.” Professor Peter McHugh is the Established Professor of Biomedical Engineering at NUI Galway. He is an internationally recognised expert in biomechanics, and works closely with clinicians and industry in order to develop mathematical models of human tissue and medical implants in an effort to understand their precise behaviour and to facilitate the design of new treatments and clinical procedures. Professor McHugh is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineers of Ireland and a recipient of the Silver Medal of the Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland. His research is widely published and highly cited in high impact international journals. The Royal Irish Academy, which was founded in 1785 and has now 455 members, is the principal learned society in Ireland.

2009

James Grogan - The Frederick Barnes Waldron Prize and MCS International Prize 2009 James Grogan from Renmore, Galway was recently conferred at NUI Galway with a B.E. in Mechanical Engineering. He also received the MCS International Prize for the best final year project in Mechanical Engineering and the Frederick Barnes Waldron Prize, as the top overall graduate in the class. Pictured at the presentation of prizes are (l-r): Professor Peter McHugh, head of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering at NUI Galway; Frank Grealish, General Manager of MCS International Galway; President of NUI Galway, Dr James J. Browne; and Professor Padraic O’Donoghue, Dean of Engineering and Informatics, NUI Galway.
Evelyn Birmingham - The Medtronic Prize, 2009 Medtronic’s Marianne Shine is pictured presenting the Medtronic Prize to Evelyn Birmingham from Dunmore, Co. Galway, the top NUI Galway Biomedical Engineering graduate in 2009. Also pictured are (left) Professor Peter McHugh, head of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering, (second right) President of NUI Galway, Dr James J. Browne, and (right) Professor Padraic O’Donoghue, Dean of Engineering and Informatics.
Dr. Conchur Ó Brádaigh - Crossland Medal for Engineering Innovation Dr. Conchúr Ó Brádaigh, a lecturer in Mechanical Engineering at NUI Galway, has been awarded the Crossland Medal for Engineering Innovation in its inaugural year. The award has been made by Engineers Ireland to recognise an engineer whose creative innovation has made a major contribution to an engineering product or manufacturing process. This prestigious prize will be awarded by Sir Bernard Crossland every two years to celebrate and promote excellence in engineering. The award was presented at the 12th Annual Sir Bernard Crossland Symposium, where Dr. Ó Brádaigh delivered the keynote lecture entitled “Development of Thermoplastic Composite Manufacturing Processes for Aircraft and Large Wind Turbine Blades.”	Sir Bernard Crossland presents the Crossland Medal for Engineering Innovation to its first ever winner, Dr Conchúr Ó Brádaigh, joint Managing Director of ÉireComposites Teo, at the Crossland Medal lecture.

Emer Feerick, Ph.D. student PhD Student Emer Feerick won first prize for best poster at the 12th Annual Sir Bernard Crossland Symposium and Postgraduate Workshop held at Queen’s University Belfast, 22 and 23 April, 2009. Emer’s poster was entitled “Analysis of Calcium Tri-Phosphate Reinforced Repair of Proximal Humeral Fractures compared with Current Unreinforced Fixation”, and her research is supervised by Dr. Pat McGarry. The prize is sponsored by IRCSET.  Emer, who is an IRCSET scholar, also won first Prize in the New Researcher category at Bioengineering in Ireland 15, the conference of the Section of Bioengineering, Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland, held in Limerick in January 2009. The award was presented for a paper entitled "Finite element investigation of the use of calcium triphosphate cements in proximal humeral fractures", co-authored by Dr. Patrick McGarry, Lecturer in Biomedical Engineering, and Dr. David FitzPatrick of UCD.

Emer Feerick being presented with the best poster prize by Prof. Peter McHugh in his role as a member of the IRCSET Council.

 

2008

IRCSET Postgraduate Scholars Four of the graduating mechanical and biomedical engineering class of 2008 were awarded IRCSET Embark Postgraduate Scholarships - Emer Feerick, Enda Dowling, Caitriona Killeen and William Ronan. Eduarda Sa Silva (not pictured) is returning to NUI Galway as an IRCSET scholar and Ph.D. student from the University of Minho, Portugal, having previously previously spent a year in the Department as an Erasmus student.

Emer Feerick - The Frederick Barnes Waldron Prize 2008 This prize is presented each year by the Institute of Mechanical Engineers to the top student in the graduating Mechanical Engineering class. Emer also received an IRCSET Postgraduate Scholarship and is now working on research towards a Ph.D. at NUI Galway. Prof. James Browne (President) presented the award to Emer with Prof. Peter McHugh (right, Professor of Biomedical Engineering) and Dr. Nathan Quinlan representing the IMechE.

Paul Weafer - The Medtronic Prize, 2008 The Medtronic Prize for the top graduating Biomedical Engineering student was presented to Paul Weafer. After graduation, Paul began research towards a Ph.D. at NUI Galway. The picture shows Prof. James Browne presenting the prize to Paul with Prof. Peter McHugh.

William Ronan - The MCS Prize, 2008 William Ronan was presented with the MCS Prize for the best final year project by a Mechanical Engineering student. He is now working towards a Ph.D. at NUI Galway, after receiving an IRCSET Postgraduate Scholarship. Pictured are Mr. Adrian Connaire of MCS, Prof. James Browne (President), Mr. William Ronan and Prof. Peter McHugh (Professor of Biomedical Engineering).

Michael Keeney , Ph.D. student

Michael, a Ph.D. student under the supervision of Prof. Abhay Pandit, received a prestigious fellowship from the European Molecular Biology Organisation which will allow him to work in one of Europe's leading biomaterials laboratories in Radboud University.

Carolyn Holladay , Ph.D. student 

Carolyn Holladay's abstract "Complexing DNA with Dendrimers to Enhance Gene Delivery from Collagen Scaffolds to Mesenchymal Stem Cells" was selected as one of the top 50 (of over 300) at the TERMIS-EU 2008 meeting of the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society. The abstract is co-authored by Mary Murphy, Dr. Udo Greiser and Prof. Abhay Pandit.

Mangesh Kulkarni , Ph.D. student 

Mangesh Kulkarni's abstract was selected as one of the top 50 (of over 300) at the TERMIS-EU 2008 meeting of the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society. The abstract is co-authored by Mangesh's supervisor, Prof. Abhay Pandit.

Ruairi Nestor , Ph.D. student

Postgraduate student Ruairi Nestor received the Libersky Prize for the best research paper by a student at the 2008 SPHERIC International Workshop on Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics, held in Lausanne, Switzerland. Ruairi's paper, "Moving boundary Problems in with the Finite Volume Particle Method" ( download as PDF, 6 MB) was co-authored by fellow Ph.D. student Mihai Basa and their supervisor, Dr. Nathan Quinlan. The work concerns the development of new mesh-free computational methods for the simulation of complex phenomena in fluid dynamics, with potential industrial applications ranging from airliners to medical implants. Ruairi holds an IRCSET Postgraduate Research Scholarship.

Claire Conway , Ph.D. student

Postgraduate student Claire Conway, who is an IRCSET Scholar, won 1^st Prize in the New Researcher category at Bioengineering in Ireland 14, the conference of the Section of Bioengineering, Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland, held in Sligo in January 2008, for a presentation entitled “A Novel Method for Coronary Stent Analysis and Design”, co-authored by Professor Peter McHugh and Dr. Patrick McGarry.

2007

Michael Dunning Siemens Innovative Engineer of the Year, 2007 The Siemens Innovative Engineer of the Year for 2007 is Michael Dunning, a final year student in Biomedical Engineering at NUI Galway. Michael designed a novel biodegradable self-expanding polymeric stent (a medical implant used to hold narrow a vessel open when it is constricted as a result of disease or imflammation). The awards was presented after a nationwide competition and presentations by 6 finalists, representing six Universities and Institutes of Technology. Michael's award-winning work was conducted for his final year project with the supervision of Prof. Abhay Pandit. Michael is now employed by Galway-based medical device developer, Zerusa.

Dr. Conchúr Ó Brádaigh , lecturer ÉireComposites Teo. has won the Innovation category in the inaugural Údarás na Gaeltachta Business Awards. Dr. Conchúr Ó Brádaigh, Joint Managing Director of ÉireComposites, is a part-time lecturer in the Department of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering, NUI Galway. ÉireComposites, based in An Cheathrú Rua, Co. Galway, is a true world leader in the design, manufacturing and testing of lightweight, high performance fibre-reinforced composite materials. It has established accredited aerospace composites manufacturing and testing facilities in Galway to service its 60 customers worldwide who are in the aerospace, wind energy, marine, Formula 1 racing and general automotive sectors. It is one of the few companies in the world that can offer integrated design, tooling, manufacturing and testing of composites in a single organisation.

Rosa Vinas Castells, B.E. graduate in biomedical engineering At the November 2007 graduation ceremony, Rosa Vinas Castells was presented with the Medtronic Prize in Biomedical Engineering for achieving the highest mark in the final year of the programme leading to the B.E. in Biomedical Engineering. Rosa also won an IRCSET postgraduate scholarship and is now carrying out research on biomaterials for a Ph.D. She is pictured receiving her award from the President of NUI Galway, Dr. Iognáid Ó Muircheartaigh.

Claire Conway , B.E. graduate in mechanical engineering Claire Conway received the MCS Prize in Mechanical Engineering, awarded for the best individual project by a final year student of Mechanical Engineering, as well as the IMechE Frederick Barnes Waldron Prize for the best overall mark in the Mechanical Engineering degree programme. Claire also won an IRCSET postgraduate scholarship and has started a Ph.D. in medical device design in NUI Galway. President of NUI Galway, Dr. Iognáid Ó Muircheartaigh, presented the awards at the November conferring.

Nathan Quinlan, lecturer

Dr. Nathan Quinlan, a lecturer in the Department of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering, has received a President's Award for Teaching Excellence, presented this year to 5 members of NUI Galway staff. He develops and teaches courses on Fundamentals of Mechanical Engineering (first year), Thermodynamics and Heat Transfer (third year), and Energy Conversion (fourth year).

Garrett Ryan , Ph.D. student

Best oral presentation at the 21st European Conference on Biomaterials for "Apatite Formation on Bioactive Porous Titanium Scaffold" by Ryan, G., Kaiser, R., Kitching, K., Apatsidis, D. and Pandit, A.

Jeff Chan, Ph.D. student

Best poster presentation at the 21st European Conference on Biomaterials for "Optimization of Properties of Cholecyst-Derived Extracellular Matrix using Carbodiimide Crosslinking" by Chan, J.C.Y., Burugapalli, K., Kelly, J.L. and Pandit, A.

Yolanda Garcia, Ph.D. student

Travel award, 21st European Conference on Biomaterials.

Noel Harrison, Ph.D. student

Noel Harrison won 1^st Prize for Best Overall Oral Presentation at the European Society of Biomechanics Summer Workshop 2007 on Finite Element Modelling in Biomechanics and Mechanobiology, attended by over 160 delegates from across Europe, for his presentation entitled “A Novel Large Deformation Finite Element Approach to Modelling Micro-Damage and Micro-Fracture in Trabecular Bone” (Harrison, N., McDonnell, P., Mullins, L. and McHugh, P.E.). Noel is an IRCSET scholar and supervised by Professor Peter McHugh.
More about this research

Caroline Hopkins, Ph.D. student

Postgraduate student Caroline Hopkins, who is an IRCSET Scholar, won the Northern Ireland Biomedical Engineering Society (NIBES) DePuy Shield for the Best New Student at the Bioengineering in Ireland 13 Conference -– the joint conference of the Section of Bioengineering, Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland and the Northern Ireland Biomedical Engineering Society –- for a presentation entitled “Computer Modelling of Gene Delivery from a Coated Stent”, co-authored by Professor Peter McHugh and Dr. Patrick McGarry. She also recently won 2nd prize in the poster competition of the 10th Annual Sir Bernard Crossland Symposium and Postgraduate Research Workshop for her project.

2006

Laura Bree, biomedical engineering undergraduate

Laura Bree is one of 10 recipients nationwide of the inaugural SFI/Dell Young Women in Engineering scholarship awards.

Michael Keeney, Ph.D. student

Michael Keeney received the Best Poster Award at the 20th European Conference on Biomaterials (ESB2006), the most important meeting of the European biomaterials research community. His poster "Development of Hierarchies in Scaffold Architecture" (Keeney, M., Damodaran, G., Coburn, J., and Pandit, A.) stood out among 400 others at the conference in Nantes. Michael is supervised by Prof. Abhay Pandit and is an Embark Postgraduate Scholar.

Mihai Basa, Ph.D. student

Mihai Basa received the Best Poster Award at the 9th Annual Sir Bernard Crossland Symposium and Postgraduate Research Workshop, for the poster "Smoothed particle hydrodynamics-modelling without a mesh", co-authored with Marty Lastiwka and Nathan Quinlan. Mihai's research is funded by an IRCSET Basic Research Grant.

Liam Breen, Ph.D. student

Liam Breen was awarded third place in the student papers competition at the Bioengineering in Ireland 12 for the paper "Analytical, computational and experimental validation of a vascular bioreactor," co-authored by Bruce Murphy and Peter McHugh. Endothelial cells line the internal surfaces of arteries. These cells are known to dysfunction during early stages of atherosclerosis, leading to the development of hear disease. Liam's project is focused on investigating how dysfunction is related to the mechanical forces that the cells experience. A bioreactor apparatus has been designed, built and validated that simultaneously applies pulsatile stretching (from the cyclic expansion of the artery due to the cycling in blood pressure) and pulsatile shear stress (from the cyclic flow of blood in the artery) to endothelial cells. The cells are analysed biologically in terms of their production of adhesion molecules that attract white blood cells as part of the disease initiation process.

Jeff Chan, Ph.D. student

Best Podium Prize at the Annual Meeting of the Irish Association of Plastic Surgeons, Dublin, 2005, for the paper "Tissue Response and Degradation Properties of the Cholecyst-derived Extracellular Matrix (CEM) - a Novel Biologically-derived Material for Use in Abdominal and Thoracic Wall Defects" by J. Chan, K. Burugapalli, J. Kelly, and A. Pandit. Jeff is developing a patented extracellular matrix that can be used to repair a hernia or thoracic wall defect. He is a clinician (specialising in plastic surgery) and has taken time to finish a PhD to pursue his interests in developing biomaterials for tissue engineering applications. Jeff's research is funded through the Enterprise Ireland Technology Development Programme. Jeff hopes to develop this concept to the translational phase and see a commercial technology developed from his PhD.

Ailish Breen, Ph.D. student

Ailish Breen received second prize in the student papers competition at the 12th Annual Conference of the Section of Bioengineering, Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland. Ailish is developing an optimised fibrin scaffold for delivering a therapeutic gene. The clinical application that is targeted is diabetic ulcers which have a deficiency of angiogenesis. Ailish's preliminary studies have shown that a marker gene can be delivered to the site and is taken up by cells. Ailish's study to use fibrin to deliver a viral vector is a first report of these significant findings. Her research is funded by a Basic Research Grant from the Health Research Board. Full details of the paper are: Breen, A., Barker, T., Hubbell, J., O'Brien, T., and Pandit, A. In Vivo Adenoviral Vector Gene Delivery via a Fibrin Scaffold. 12th Annual Conference of the Section of Bioengineering, Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland, Galway, 2006

2005

Mark Ward, first year M.Eng.Sc. student

Mark received the award for the best poster presentation at the 8th Annual Sir Bernard Crossland Symposium and Postgraduate Research Workshop, held in Queen's University Belfast on 6-7 April 2005. His poster is entitled "Toughening of epoxy systems for aircraft applications using soluble thermoplastic fibres." Mark Ward is supervised by Dr. Conchúr Ó Brádaigh and Dr. Adrian Murtagh, and supported by the NUI, Galway Postgraduate Fellowship Scheme.

Noel Harrison, third year PhD student

Noel Harrison received the Bronze Medal of the Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland for the paper "Automated Finite Element Voxel Mesh Generation", co-authored by Dr. Denis O'Mahoney and Prof. Peter McHugh, the supervisor of the research. The research described in the paper enables rapid turnaround of the intensive computing tasks required to study of the behaviour of bone at microscopic level. This award recognises the best research paper presented at at the annual Bioengineering in Ireland Conference. Noel Harrison is an IRCSET Embark scholar.

2004

Ailish Breen, second year PhD student

Ailish Breen secured the best poster prize in the European Society for Gene Therapy meeting that was held in Tampere, Finland. The poster was entitled 'Optimisation of a Fibrin Scaffold for Viral Vector Mediated Gene Delivery'. Ailish has just entered the second year of her PhD. Her research is funded by the Health Research Board and she is supervised by Prof. Abhay Pandit.

Ellen Roche, final year BE student in biomedical engineering

The Ryan Hanley Prize for the best final year project in all 8 engineering degree disciplines at NUI Galway. Awarded for the project "An Ex-Vivo Carotid Model." Following the Ryan Hanley Prize, Ellen represented NUI, Galway in the Siemens Young Engineer of the Year Award, and took second place. The Siemens Award is presented annually for the best final project in all engineering degree disciplines in Irish universities and Institutes of Technology. Ellen Roche was also awarded the Medtronic Prize for the top final year project in Biomedical Engineering in NUI Galway. On graduation she was awarded a placement in the IBEC Export Orientation Programme.

Áine Greene, final year BE student in Mechanical Engineering

Áine Greene was presented with the Frederick Barnes Waldron ’Best Student’ prize of the Insitute of Mechanical Engineers, and featured in the IMechE newsletter . She took second place in the Ryan Hanley Prize, for her project "Study of Boiler Sootblowing / Thermal Drain Valve Performance on a Power Generating Unit at ESB Moneypoint." Áine is now employed in the power generation division of ESB.

Marty Lastiwka, PhD student

Finalist in the Bill Morton Prize for the best presentation by a young researcher at the ICFD Conference on Numerical Methods for Fluid Dynamics, Oxford, April 2004. Awarded for the paper "Adaptive particle distribution for Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics" by Martin Lastiwka, Nathan Quinlan and Mihai Basa.

Nathan Quinlan, lecturer

Bronze Medal of the Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland for the paper "Measurements of three-dimensional unsteady flow in a model left ventricle with prosthetic valves" by Donal Taylor, Nathan Quinlan and John Eaton presented at the 10th annual Bioengineering in Ireland Conference, Castelconnell, Co. Limerick, January 2004.
Press release | Irish Times article

2003

Jerome Henry, final year biomedical engineering student

The Medtronic Prize for the best final year project in Biomedical Engineering in NUI Galway, and second place in the Ryan Hanley Prize for the best final year engineering projects in NUI Galway. Jerome is now a Ph.D. student in this department.

Donal Taylor, M.Eng.Sc. student

Second prize in the Sixth Annual Sir Bernard Crossland Symposium for papers by mechanical engineering postgraduates in the first 18 months of their research. Awarded for the paper "Visualisation and Measurement of flow in a model left ventricle with prosthetic heart valves by stereoscopic particle image velocimetry" by Donal Taylor, Nathan Quinlan and John Eaton. Donal is now carrying out research towards a PhD in the Department of Bioengineering, Imperial College, London.

Sarah Brody, Ph.D. student

Finalist in the Embark / IEI Research Achievement Awards for engineering postgraduates. Sarah is an IRCSET Embark scholar supervised by Prof. Abhay Pandit.

2001

James McGarry, final year mechanical engineering student

James McGarry's final year project earned the inaugural Medtronic AVE Prize for the best final year degree project on a Biomedical Engineering topic in Ireland, and the Siemens Young Engineer of the Year Award for the best project in all engineering disciplines. He was also awared first prize in the Irish section of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers' Queen's Jubilee competition, and went on to present his project in the final competition for the UK and Ireland. James is now completing a PhD at Trinity College, Dublin.

More information | Press release

1994

Ronan Cunningham, final year mechanical engineering student

Ronan Cunningham received the Unidare Prize, hosted by the Institute of Engineers in Ireland, for best undergraduate engineering project in Ireland, entitled "Thermomechanical Analysis of Medical Catheters". His project also won the Irish division of the IMechE Queen's Jubilee competition for the best mechanical engineering project in Britain and Ireland. He went on to take a Master's at MIT, worked in the aerospace industry with Boeing in Seattle for several years, and then cofounded ATA Engineering in San Diego, CA, a mechanical engineering consulting firm serving the aerospace industry.

IRCSET Embark Scholars

The following students received IRCSET Embark Postgraduate Research Scholarships. These prestigious awards are presented to outstanding students each year by the Government of Ireland following a nationwide competition in all branches of science and engineering.

2008

Enda Dowling
Emer Feerick
Caitriona Killeen
William Ronan
Ana Eduarda Silva

2007

Claire Conway
Rosa Vinas Castells
Neil Duffy

2006

Caroline Hopkins
Padraic Dooley

2005

Gerald Glynn
Michael Keeney
Laura McCann
Coralie Mureau
Rúairi Nestor

2004

Patricia Johnson

2003

Damien O'Halloran
Padraig O'Flynn
Jerome Henry
Brendan Flaherty

2002

Noel Harrison
Frank Harewood
Sarah Brody
Joe Freeley
Ruth Hegarty
Kevin Heraty
Liam Breen

top of page

    

• Disclaimer
• Privacy
• Copyright
• Accessibility