Postdoctoral
Team Profiles
Daniel Kelly
Daniel received his PhD in Computer Science, specialising in Machine Learning and Serverless Computing, from the University of Galway, Ireland. His research focused on translation of web traffic into images for detection of a cyber-attack on Serverless Computing, known as Denial of Wallet. Daniel also has conducted prior research on the application of Computer Vision to Search and Rescue tasks such as casualty. He was an active volunteer at the university Makerspace where he ran and performed maintenance on the 3D printers. Currently, Daniel is working in a postdoctoral research position that brings together his past research experience and love of 3D printing, that aims to utilise Computer Vision for the autonomous correction of control parameters in extrusion-based 3D printing.
Amir Mohammed Abdo
Amir obtained his PhD in biomedical engineering in 2023 from the University of Galway, and he has MSc in Biological& Bioprocess Engineering from Sheffield University U.K and MSc in Biochemistry from Helwan University, Egypt. His research interests are the development of reactive oxygen and nitrogen species shielding materials for different biomedical applications. In CÚRAM, he is working under the supervision of Prof. Abhay Pandit on the development of nitric oxide scavenging hydrogels, and funded by the Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellowship Programme.
Andrew Gallagher
Andrew obtained his BSc and MSc Industrial Biotechnology from Liverpool John Moores University, England. His PhD, awarded in 2018 from the University of Liverpool, England focussed on the development of a novel peptide based hydrogel as an antimicrobial bandage contact lens. He also spent seven years in industry developing biomaterials for a range of applications. Currently, under the supervision of Professor Pandit, he is investigating novel mucoadhesive microparticles for ocular drug delivery.
Anna Hobbins
Dr Anna Hobbins is a postdoctoral researcher working on economic evaluation of medical devices at CÚRAM and Health Economics & Policy Analysis Centre University of Galway. She completed her PhD in Queen’s University Belfast which involved producing the Irish “value set”, “population norms” using the EQ-5D-5L system. The output from Anna’s work, which has involved collaboration with colleagues across multiple disciplines, has been published in a range of leading national and international peer-reviewed journals.
Anneke Verbruggen
Qualifications: PhD, Masters and Bachelors in Biomedical Engineering. Research Area: Mechanobiology, Metastasis, Medical Device technology, computational modelling. CURAM project: Optimising novel experimental and computational models to aid in the development of medical device technologies designed by Stryker (Cork). Specifically investigating responses of soft tissue to the cutting action of RF Electrosurgical Instruments and ultrasonic debridement. Funded by CURAM and Stryker.
Cansu Sahin
Cansu obtained her PhD in Histology and Embryology from the Ankara Yildirim Beyazit University Faculty of Medicine in Türkiye. Her research focused on investigating the expressions and functions of ubiquitin proteasome system proteins in human placenta. She is currently working under the supervision of Dr. Karen Doyle on the characteristics of thrombi from acute ischemic stroke patients, using a mix of histological and immunohistochemical techniques. Her main role is to involve the management and analysis of the database of clot pathology, exploring the correlation of clot characteristics with clinical characteristics, and electrical impedance analysis.
Clara Sanz Nogués
Clara has a BSc Biotechnology from the Polytechnic University of Valencia (Spain), a MSc in Clinical Research from NUI Galway, and a PhD from University of Galway. Her research focuses on developing novel mesenchymal stromal cell (MSC)-based therapies for treating diabetic complications. Clara’s current project at CÚRAM aims to develop a novel tissue engineered construct using umbilical cord MSCs for treating non-healing wound ulcers in diabetic patients. Her supervisors are Prof Timothy O’Brien and Dr Dimitrios Zeugolis.
David Keane
David has a background in medical physics with 15 years in the NHS as a registered Clinical Scientist. His research focuses on technology in haemodialysis, including a PhD on measurement of fluid status. Clinically, he supported clinical measurement and data usage in the renal unit and had leadership positions in the UK Kidney Association. David will be working with CÚRAM Co-PI Prof. Matt Griffin, developing clinical trial methodology and infrastructure as part of the Clinical Translation Support team.
Eimear Wallace
Eimear obtained her with BSc in Biomedical Science and MSc in Regenerative Medicine from University of Galway. During her PhD, Eimear developed an implantable soft robotic drug delivery system for controlled release of VEGF. At CÚRAM she is working with Doctor Eimear Dolan of University of Galway and Doctor Andrew Cameron of FeelTect to develop an actuatable drug delivery device to deliver angiogenic growth factors to encourage healing of diabetic foot ulcers.
Enda Murphy
Enda obtained a BSc in Sports Science and Health (1st class honours) from Dublin City University in 2014. He worked as a Senior Technical Officer in the School of Health and Human Performance there from 2014 - 2022, while also completing a PhD on the role of exercise intensity and muscle contraction frequency in modulating exercise response. At CÚRAM, he will investigate the relevance of physiological ketosis as an indicator of health improvements in patients with obesity and related metabolic disorders.
Eulalie Lafarge
After obtaining her master’s degree in Soft Matter Physics and chemistry 2019 from the University of Bordeaux, Eulalie defended her PhD in 2022 at the University of Strasbourg. Her work focused on modifying lipid membrane physical properties as a function of lipid oxidation degree. She is now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Galway, investigating brain inflammatory response caused by biomaterial of various physicochemical properties, a study done under the supervision of Dr. Declan McKernan.
Giriprasath Ramanathan
Giriprasath obtained his PhD in 2017 from Anna University, Chennai, India. His research focused on the fabrication and characterization of biomaterials using different techniques for skin and bone tissue engineering application. He was awarded Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Individual Fellowship (IF) during his postdoc at KU leuven, Belgium. His research area is in the development of hydrogels for Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) in CURAM, under the supervision of Dr. Yury Rochev & Dr. Abhay Pandit.
James O'Connor
James received a BSc in Biotechnology from DCU and a BM BS from UL. His research interests include thoracic surgery, airway disease and regenerative medicine. James will be working on tracheal regeneration and tissue engineering under the supervision of Professor Karen Redmond and Professor Sally-Ann Cryan in conjunction with the Tissue Engineering Group in RCSI.
Joan Martí Muñoz
Joan received his PhD in Material Science and Engineering from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (Barcelona, Spain). His research was focused on synthetic scaffolds to induce vascularization in hard-to-heal wounds. Then, Joan joined CÚRAM as part of the MedTrain Program where he developed Galectin-3 inhibitory hydrogels under the supervision of Prof. Abhay Pandit. Currently, Joan has been awarded the prestigious Individual (Global) Marie Curie Action in an international collaboration with Yale University (EEUU) under the supervision of Prof. Abhay Pandit and Prof. Naftali Kaminski, MD (Yale) to investigate the effects of this novel Galectin-3 inhibitor hydrogels in lung Fibrosis.
Juan Fandiño
Juan obtained his B.Sc. in Biology, M.Sc. in Nutrition and PhD in Endocrinology from the University of Vigo. His PhD research was focused on the study of the effect of a GLP-1 receptor agonist in an animal model of lung fibrosis. His research interests are the study of novel therapies for the treatment of pulmonary diseases. At CÚRAM, Juan is working in a preclinical testing of iPS-derived MSCs in animal models of bacterial and viral ARDS under the supervision of Dr. Daniel O’Toole and Prof. John Laffey.
Juan Uribe-Gomez
Juan obtained his B.Sc. in chemistry, M.Sc. in organic synthesis from Universidad Nacional de Colombia and his PhD in polymer science from the University of Bayreuth. His PhD research was focused on the synthesis, characterization, processing, and biological assessment of polyurethanes. At CÚRAM, Juan is working in biomaterials database BiomatDB under the supervision of Prof. Abhay Pandit.
Kieran Joyce
Kieran graduated with a Bachelor of Medical Sciences as part of an integrated MB PhD program in NUI Galway. He completed his PhD, investigating the glycoprofile of the intervertebral disc in degeneration under the supervision of Prof. Abhay Pandit. An intern doctor at University Hospital Galway and postdoctoral researcher at University of Galway, Kieran's postdoctoral research focuses on the development of biomaterial-based therapies in intervertebral disc degeneration.
Kishor Das
Dr. Das obtained his PhD in Biostatistics from University of Galway. His research is focused on analysing high-dimensional data using Mixed-effects Modelling framework and Functional Data Analysis. His current work at CÚRAM is focused on developing multivariate adaptive reference region, providing statistical supports to CÚRAM researchers, and facilitating training and workshops on statistical methodologies and statistical software R. He is supervised by Professor John Newell and Dr. Davood Roshan.
Krittish Roy
Krittish completed his PhD from the Department of Chemistry, Jadavpur University, Kolkata 700032. He has expertise in inorganic synthesis, MOF synthesis, graphene synthesis, thin and thick film preparation, nanofiber preparation through electrospinning technique, energy harvesting devices, device fabrication. He has published nearly 15 articles to date in different reputed journals. In addition, he has presented his work in several national and international conferences. Krittish is enthusiastic about learning different tools to improve research contributions. His research is on biodegradable film preparation and coating for in-vivo application, supervised by Dr. Tofail Syed.
Muhammad Riaz ur Rehman
Muhammad Riaz ur Rehman obtained his PhD degree in Electronic and Electrical Engineering from Sungkyunkwan University, South Korea in 2020. He has 10 years industry experience related to design of Software Defined Radios and embedded system design. His area of interest are design of digital IC and embedded systems based on FPGA and microcontroller. Currently developing an electronic embedded system for powering and communication with an implantable biosensor. He is supervised by Dr William Wijns and Dr Atif Shahzad.
Nazan Güner Sak
Nazan has a B.Sc. in Biology, obtained her M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Human Anatomy from the Bursa Uludag University Faculty of Medicine in Türkiye. She has worked as a researcher at the Queen Mary University of London. Her study is related to investigating brain structures in children with epilepsy diagnosis. She is currently working under the supervision of Dr. Karen Doyle on the characteristics of thrombi from acute ischemic stroke patients, using a mix of histological and immuno-histochemical techniques. Her main role is to involve the management and analysis of the database of clot pathology, exploring the correlation of clot characteristics with clinical characteristics, and electrical impedance analysis.
READ MORENiamh Hynes
Ms Niamh Hynes is a Senior Registrar in Vascular & Endovascular Surgery at the Galway Clinic, Honorary Clinical Lecturer in Endovascular Surgery at the University of Galway, and co-founder of the Western Vascular Institute (WVI), an international vascular research foundation. Her areas of interest are clinical vascular research, biomedical engineering and vascular medical device design.
READ MOREPatricia Vazquez
Patricia Vazquez obtained her PhD in Micro-Electro-Mechanic sensors in 2011 from the University DTU Nanotech, Denmark. She trained as a postdoctoral researcher at Tyndall National Institute, Ireland, studying microfluidic techniques applied to electrochemical sensors for biomedical applications. In the last years, her interests have focused in cardiovascular sensors based on wireless technology. As a researcher at CÚRAM, she is working on the development of a smart renal denervation device to treat hypertension and the use of ultrasound for implantable sensors.
Prateek Ranjan Yadav
Prateek obtained his PhD from Indian Institute of Technology Delhi in 2023. His PhD was focused on modelling and optimisation of polymeric microneedle based transdermal drug delivery systems. Currently, Prateek is working on medical device development for gastrointestinal applications.
Pravin Bhattarai
Pravin Bhattarai completed his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Peking University, China (2019). He worked on the near-infrared fluorescent molecular probes-based phototherapy and imaging for cancer theranostics. After PhD, he worked as a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Biophotonics at Phutung Research Institute, Nepal. Currently, at CÚRAM he plans to work on the design of piezoelectric energy scavenging biomaterials for low power biomedical applications under Dr. Manus Biggs.
Rashmi Ramakrishnan
Rashmi received her PhD in Biological Sciences (Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine) in 2020 from Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology, Thiruvananthapuram, India. She also holds an MPhil in Biomedical Technology and an MSc in Medical Biochemistry. Her research interest focuses on the application of stem cells, biomaterials, tissue engineering, and regenerative medicine towards development of cost-effective, scalable biomedical therapeutics and devices for tissue repair. Currently at CURAM, she is working as a postdoctoral fellow in Dr Andrew Daly’s group on an industry-funded project to investigate new in vitro models for optimization of compatibility tests for extracellular matrix-based biomaterials.
Rumi Khandelia
Rumi did her PhD in Chemistry (specialisation - Nanomedicine) from IIT Guwahati (IITG), India and her postdoc from IITG and IIT Genova, Italy. She worked in the Pharmaceutical industry as senior manager for 2.5 years as part of the analytical team and worked on new product development. Currently, she is working as a Marie Curie Fellow in UCD, Ireland under Prof. David Brayden on the project - development of protein nanoparticles for intra-articular delivery of an inflammatory drug to treat osteoarthritis.
Sahil Malhotra
Sahil obtained a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Indian Institute of technology Delhi. His research focused on engineering Red Blood Cells membrane to develop biocompatible nanovesicles for biomedical applications. After completing his PhD, Sahil worked as a scientist with Biocon, one of the leading global brands in Biopharmaceuticals, where he worked on physico-chemical characterization of biosimilars. He is currently working on an SFI and Marie-Curie Action co-funded project under the supervision of Prof. David Brayden at UCD wherein he will develop a Mucoadhesive Buccal patch for systemic delivery of anti-cancer peptide drugs.
Seán McCarthy
Seán obtained his PhD from University College Dublin. His research interests include genomics and gene therapy in the area of acute respiratory distress syndrome and sepsis. At CÚRAM, Seán is examining high efficacy throughput screening of vehicles for mRNA delivery to the lung in ARDS with Dr Daniel O’Toole and Prof. John Laffey.
Viviane Chiaradia
Viviane earned her PhD in Chemical Engineering at the Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil. Her thesis was focused on the design of biodegradable polyesters and included a secondment to the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI). Following this, Viviane worked as a Research Fellow and as a Marie Curie Fellow at the University of Birmingham. Viviane is currently investigating the design of degradable polymers and their manufacturing via 3D printing under the supervision of Andreas Heise, RCSI.