MESTECH Principal Investigators

Prof. Fiona Regan - MESTECH Director

Fiona Regan studied Environmental Science and Technology at the Institute of Technology in Sligo and graduated in 1991. She obtained her PhD in Analytical chemistry in 1994, at Dublin City University (DCU). Following her PhD she carried out Postdoctoral research in the physics Department of DCU. On completion of the postdoctoral research programme she took up a position at Limerick Institute of Technology as lecturer in Environmental and Analytical Science in 1996. In 2002 returned to the School of Chemical Sciences, DCU, as a lecturer in analytical chemistry and in 2008 she was promoted to Senior Lecturer. There she has an active research group in the area of separations and sensors for environmental application. Her group (Analytical Environmental Research Group (AER) currently consists of 13 researchers. In 2009 she was promoted to Associate Professor in Environmental Sensing and is PI of the Beaufort Marine Sensing Programme at DCU.

Prof. Dermot Diamond  

Dermot Diamond received his Ph.D. and D.Sc. from Queen's University Belfast (Chemical Sensors, 1987, Internet Scale Sensing, 2002), and was VP for Research at Dublin City University (2002-2004). He has published over 200 peer-reviewed papers in international journals, is a named inventor in 13 patents, and is co-author and editor of three books. He is currently director of theNational Centre for Sensor Research (www.ncsr.ie) at Dublin City university, and a Principle Investigator in CLARITY (www.clarity-centre.com/), a major research initiative focused on wireless sensor networks. In 2002 he was awarded the inaugural silver medal for Sensor Research by the Royal Society of Chemistry, London and in 2006 he received the DCU President's Award for research excellence. Details of his research can be found at www.dcu.ie/chemistry/asg.

Prof. Alan Smeaton

Alan Smeaton is Professor of Computing in DCU and Deputy Director of CLARITY. His early work focussed on text-based information retrieval then moved to information retrieval of images and then video and lately sensor information. He has graduated more than 25 PhD and M.Sc. research students and currently leads a team of 16 researchers at postdoctoral and PhD levels. He is a member of the editorial boards of 5 journals and has published almost 300 refereed papers/book chapters/proceedings. He has been program chair or co-chair for 10 international conferences and is on the program committees of between 10 and 20 conferences each year. He has 6 patents and has won significant grant income from national and international funding agencies, and from industry.

Prof. Noel O'Connor

Noel E. O'Connor is currently an Associate Professor in the School of Electronic Engineering at DCU and a Principal Investigator in CLARITY. Prof. O'Connor's research interests are in audio-visual (AV) analysis for content-based information retrieval. He has published over 160 peer-reviewed publications, made 11 standards submissions, filed 5 patents, edited 6 journal special issues and spun off a campus company. He has graduated 12 PhD students and has acted as an expert reviewer for a number of EU projects, as well as an expert evaluator for EU FP6 and FP7. He is a member of IEEE, Engineers Ireland and the IET.

Prof. Richard O'Kennedy

Prof. Richard O'Kennedy has a B.Sc. in Biochemistry and a P.hD. in Tumour Biochemistry/Immunology from UCD. In 1980 he joined DCU as a lecturer in Biochemistry and was a founding member of the University and the School of Biological Sciences. He became a senior lecturer in 1987. In 1989 he became head of the School of Biological Sciences (now the school of Biotechnology) and Professor in 1993. He has played a major role in the development of new schools such as Nursing and Sports and has developed courses including, Biotechnology, Analytical Science, Science Communication and Medical Mechanical Engineering. He is the current Vice President for Learning Innovation. He is internationally recognised for his contributions in relation to antibody production and applications. Prof. O'Kennedy is the current Vice President for Learning Innovation at DCU.

Dr. Aoife Morrin

Aoife Morrin studied Applied Sciences at Dublin Institute of Technology and graduated in 2000. She obtained her PhD in electroanalytical chemistry in 2004 at Dublin City University (DCU). Following her PhD she gained post-doctoral experience both at the National Centre for Sensor Research at DCU and the University of Wollongong, Australia. On completion of her post-doctoral fellowship, she took up an academic position in the School of Chemical Sciences at DCU as lecturer in Environmental and Analytical Science in 2008. Here, she has an active research group, currently consisting of 5 members, in multi-disciplinary areas including functional (nano)materials, electrochemical sensor platforms for point-of-care diagnostics and environmental analysis, microfluidics for chromatographic applications and ink formulation and printing to enable and drive the area of printed electronics.

Dr. Blanaid White

Blánaid White completed her PhD in Analytical Chemistry in 2005 in Dublin City University. After carrying our postdoctoral research in the University of Kansas, she returned to DCU as a research group leader, before taking up a lecturing position in the School of Chemical Sciences. In 2009 she was joint winner of the DCU President's Award for Excellence in Teaching and Learning for New Lecturers/Postgraduate Tutors. Blánaid's research interests include the application of analytical separation and detection techniques for the investigation of biochemical processes, utilising both analytical chemistry (HPLC, CE, MS) and biochemistry (FACS, Comet), investigating the role of metals (e.g. iron and copper) in initiation and propagation of oxidative stress, leading to mutagenesis, neurological diseases and aging, and the development of chromatographic stationary phases using novel monolithic polymers to develop tunable stationary phases. She is an invited participant on the European Standards Committee for Urinary Lesion Analysis.

Dr. Kieran Nolan

BSc - 1989 York University Canada PhD - 1996 York University 1996-1997 Research Chemist Novopharm Lmt. Toronto Canada. 1997-1998 Lead Formulation Chemist Chemlan Chemicals Toronto/South Carolina 1998-2001 Research Associate DCU/NCSR 2001- Lecturer School of Chemical Sciences DCU

Dr. Brian Kelleher

August 2005; Lecturer, School of Chemical Sciences, DCU. Feb. 2004 to July 2005; Postdoc. with Dr Andre Simpson, Dept. of Physical and Environmental Sciences, University of Toronto. Set-up and method development of advanced analytical hyphenated methods: Liquid Chromatography (LC)- Mass Spectroscopy (MS)-Solid Phase Extraction (SPE)- Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR). July 2002- Feb. 2004; Postdoctoral Researcher with Prof. William Kingery, Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, Mississippi State University. Catalytic activity of enzymes immobilised on organo-minerals. Characterisation of organic/inorganic component of deep-sea sediments associated with gas hydrates. Feb. 2001-July 2002; Project Manager for an EPA (Ireland) funded research project that resulted in a successful demonstration of the fluidised bed combustion of animal waste to produce heat and electricity. 1997-2001: PhD. Dr Tom O'Dwyer, development of sorbents for organic compounds, University of Limerick.

Dr. Stephen Daniels

Stephen Daniels holds B.Eng in Electronic Engineering from DCU and a PhD from DCU earned while studying abroad at IMEC, Belgium and Philips Research, The Netherlands. He spent 8 years with Applied Materials, where he held a number of senior positions including Metallisation Technologist for Northern Europe and Global Cluster Team Manager. Following this he spent 3 years with Scientific Systems as Head of Research and Development, developing and marketing their flagship plasma process control product. Following this he spent a year at University College Dublin as manager of the Centre for Materials and Manufacturing Technology. In April 2004, he joined the Dept. of Electronic Engineering, DCU and in July 2005 was appointed Executive Director of the National Centre for Plasma Science and Technology. Dr. Daniels has founded several highly successful technology companies and in 2006 Dr. Daniels was the winner of the Mallin Invent Award for Innovation. Dr. Daniels has extensive management experience. He has led and managed large groups of highly qualified staff and on many occasions successfully led and completed large complex international projects.

Dr. Brian Corcoran   

Dr Brian Corcoran (PhD, CEng, MIMechE, MIEI) is a Lecturer in the School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering at Dublin City University. A graduate of Bolton Street, College of Technology and of Dublin City University, he is a Chartered Engineer and was awarded his Ph.D. in 2003. He currently lectures on Thermo- Fluids, Sustainable Water Systems and Pneumatics at DCU. His research interests include Sustainable Water Systems, Sustainable Energy Systems, High Purity Water Systems, Wireless Environmental Sensors and Lab-on-a-Chip projects. He has collaborative links both nationally and internationally and an excellent research track record.

Dr. Yann Delauré

Dr. Yann Delauré is a lecturer in the School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering at Dublin City University (DCU), Ireland. He received his PhD from the National University of Ireland, University College Cork in 2001. Before joining DCU he worked for a period of five years as a research engineer at the Hydraulics and Maritime Research Centre in Cork until 2001 and held a one year post-doctoral research position at Trinity College Dublin in 2002. His research interests include computational modelling of multi fluid flows with a particular focus on energy systems and environmental processes. This work relies on High Performance computing and involves in-house code development as well the use of commercial and open source CFD codes. He has co-authored 19 articles in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings and has been granted two Individual Marie Curie Fellowships and one IRCSET Basic Research Grant. He is currently a collaborator on a SFI 2009 Research Frontier Project.

MESTECH Research Fellows

Dr. Edel O'Connor

Edel O'Connor graduated from Trinity College Dublin with a BA (Mod) in Computer Science, Linguistics and French after which she completed an MSc in Multimedia Systems. She began working as a PHD Researcher in DCU on WP3 – video sensing of the Beaufort Project in October 2007. Her research interests lie in environmental sensing with a specific focus on visual sensing, multi-modal sensor networks and trust systems in the marine environment.

Dr. Lorna Fitzsimons

Having returned to full-time education as a mature student in 2003, Lorna graduated with a degree in engineering in 2007 and was subsequently awarded an IRCSET scholarship to fund her PhD studies. The focus of her recently completed PhD thesis in Mechanical Engineering was the use of exergy analysis to optimise the energy consumption of water purification processes (semiconductor manufacturing Ultra-Pure Water (UPW) plants). Research interests include thermodynamics, energy efficiency, environmental monitoring and water purification.

Dr. James Chapman

James is currently a postdoctoral fellow in MESTECH and is involved in material development for antifouling applications. His research focusses on the use of nano-functionalised materials to prevent the effects of biofouling in the aqueous environment. Biofouling is ubiquitous in the marine environment and compromises the performance of any platform that is immersed ranging from ships, buoys and sensors to name but a few. The consequence is an increase in fuel consumption, decrease in efficiency and rising costs of ownership, which is why antifouling strategies are routinely applied. The first generation of antifouling coatings were copper based and have negative impacts on the marine environment. Owing to this, novel environmentally friendly alternatives are currently being investigated. More current strategies include; highly hydrophilic and zwitterionic polymers, superhydrophobic and bioinspired patterned surfaces - which have all proven to prevent the negative effects of biofouling. James' research has led him in to the development of metal nanoparticles as targeting biocides, superhydrophobic material design (examples taken from nature) along with smart optically clear polymers. He has presented both nationally and internationally in environmental, biofouling, biofilms, nanoparticle synthesis and material based conferences.

Dr. Timothy Sullivan

Timothy Sullivan has a degree in Environmental Science from UCC and joined DCU in November 2007 as a postgraduate student of Prof. Fiona Regan, researching the Beaufort funded project entitled "Novel antifouling methods for application to the marine environment". The focus of his work is on preventing the growth of biological material on environmental sensors and sensor platforms in the marine environment. Since beginning his postgraduate career Timothy has presented several posters and presentations on the use of biomimetic strategies for prevention of biofouling, most recently at the 2009 5th annual biofilms conference of the American Society for Microbiology (ASM), held in Cancun, Mexico.

MESTECH Collaborators

Dr. Theo Lynn

Dr. Theo Lynn is Director of Industry Engagement at DCU Business School where he teaches Strategic Management at postgraduate level. After receiving his BBLS degree from UCD in 1996, he graduated from the Michael Smurfit Graduate School of Business with MBS degree specialising in MIS. Dr. Lynn holds a PhD in Law also from UCD. Dr. Lynn has founded a number of companies incl. Enki Information Systems, Educational Multimedia Group and most recently Atomic Assets. He advises a number of domestic and international companies. Dr. Lynn is the Director of the Leadership, Innovation and Knowledge Research Centre at Dublin City University.

MESTECH Post Graduate Researchers

Ciprian Briciu-Burghina

Ciprian Briciu is currently a PhD student in DCU, in Professor's Fiona Regan group. He graduated from "Politehnica" University of Timisoara – Romania, Industrial Chemistry and Environmental Engineering Faculty in July 2009 with a degree in Organic Chemistry. He works as part of ATWARM (Advanced Technologies for Water Resource Management) which is a Marie Curie Initial Training Network funded by the EC FP7 People Programme. He joined this programme in October 2011 and his project is entitled: ''The development and deployment of a faecal matter sensor in marine and freshwater environments''. Currently he is working towards the development of the sensing platform, and investigates different strategies for the assessment of faecal pollution.

Dian Zhang

Dian Zhang graduated from Dublin City University with a B.Eng in Digital Media Engineering in 2009. After completion of his undergraduate degree he was employed as a research assistant byClarity: Centre for Sensor Web Technologies (http://www.clarity-centre.org/),at DCU. During the time he was involved in development for the InSPeCT (Integrated Surveillance for Port Container Traffic) system. He began his PHD at the School of Electronic Engineering DCU on Image Sense-Early Warning Sensing Network Using Digital Imagery and Surrogate Sensor Measurements in Oct 2010.

Brendan Heery

Brendan holds a B.Eng in Mechatronic Engineering from Dublin City University. He has over 5 years experience in building electronic and mechanical prototypes mainly for research applications. He has now returned to DCU to carry out an IRCSET funded PhD scholarship under the supervision of Prof. Fiona Regan. The research topic is Generic sensing platform design for marine environment: In particular for Faecal indicator detection. Brendan's future work will involve the integration and deployment of newly developed sensors.

Visiting Researchers

Camila Nardi Pinto

Camila Nardi Pinto, Brazil, visited the NCSR for 12 weeks in early 2012 to learn how to build sensors for gas monitoring and water quality monitoring. She is a student of Ernane Costa, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil who spent a sabbatical in DCU in 2011. Camila will return to Brazil with the knowhow of how to build sensors and MESTECH will send an optical event sensor for testing in Brazil later in the year.

Paulo Santos

Paulo Santos, Portugal, is a student of the College of Health Technology of Coimbra, currently enrolled in 3rd year of Environmental Health. Included in the Mobility program ERASMUS he had an opportunity to join a team of research fellow in the Marine and Environmental Sensing Technology Hub (MESTECH), conducting research in the field of biofouling and antifouling strategies Dublin City University (DCU) in Ireland for 3 months in early 2012.

Liliane Tavares

A student at College of Health Technology of Coimbra in Portugal. Studying for a degree in Environmental Health. Took advantage of the Erasmus Mobility programme to come to Dublin City University for 3 months in early 2012. Lillian worked under Dr. James Chapman in the Marine and Environmental Sensing Technology Hub (MESTECH) conducting research in the field of biofouling and antifouling strategies.

MESTECH Support Staff

Mary Comiskey - NCSR Centre Administrator

Mary Comiskey has a BA in Management (Hons) with an emphasis in Business Administration which she received from Webster University, Austria. She worked at the United Nations Headquarters in Vienna in the areas of External Relations and Project Management from 1988-1998. In August 2001, she was appointed Centre Administrator of the National Centre for Sensor Research (NCSR) where she provides administrative support to the NCSR Director and Centre Manager. Mary is the administrative contact point for the Beaufort Marine Project and the FP7 Marie Curie Initial Training Network ATWARM Project.

Dr. Carolyn Hughes - Technology Transfer Manager

Carolyn joined the Invent DCU team in December 2007 and is responsible for commercialisation of DCU's research in the areas of physical and chemical sciences including research from the National Centre for Sensor Research and the MESTECH Hub.Prior to joining the Invent team, Carolyn worked for 12 years with The BOC Group, a global provider of industrial gases and equipment. During this time Carolyn held a number of commercial positions in product management, business development and commercialisation management within the semiconductor and instrumentation sectors. Carolyn also spent 2 years based at IMEC in Leuven, Belgium; Europe's leading R&D centre for Microelectronics and Nanotechnology where she co-ordinated BOC's research interests. Carolyn holds a B.Sc. (Hons) degree in Chemistry and a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the University of Manchester, UK.

Aoife White - NCSR Communications Officer 

Aoife White has a degree in Electronic Engineering from Dublin City University. She worked for KeyMed Ireland, an Olympus Group Company, in their Technical Department from 2005 - 2008. In May 2008 she was appointed Communications Officer for the National Centre for Sensor Research (NCSR) where she is responsible for internal communications, external marketing and public relations, event management and the implementation of the Centre's communications channels. She also provides support for QUESTOR at DCU. Aoife is currently enrolled in the Masters in Science Communication at DCU and is due to graduate in March 2012.

MESTECH Undergraduate Interns

Caitriona Farrell - 2011 Undergraduate Intern

Caitriona Farrell was awared a Beaufort Undergraduate Internship at the end of her second year in University College Dublin where she is studying for a BE in Chemical Engineering. Caitriona spent her internship under the supervision of Prof. Alan Smeaton and Ms. Edel O'Connor and she completed a project entitled "Data aggregation for environmental monitoring" as part of the Beaufort Marine Research Awards. At the end of her internship Caitriona presented her work at the Hamilton/Beaufort Symposium in both oral and poster formats.

Iffat Naqvi - 2011 Undergraduate Intern

Iffat Naqvi was awarded a Beaufort Undergraduate Internship at the end of her second year in DCU where she is studying for a BEng in Biomedical Engineering. Iffat spent her internship under the supervisioin of Prof. Noel O'Connor and Dian Zhang and she completed a project entitled "ImageSense: an autonomous intelligent camera platform for environmental and marine monitoring" as part of the Beaufort Marine Research awards. At the end of her internship programme Iffat presented her work at the Hamilton/Beaufort Symposium in both oral and poster formats.

Lucinda Doyle - 2010 Undergraduate Intern

Lucinda Doyle was awarded a Beaufort Undergraduate Internship at the end of her second year in DCU where she is studying for a BSc in Biotechnology. Lucinda spent her internship under the supervisioin of Prof. Brett Paull and Dr. Mercedes Vazques and she completed a project entitled "Development of a high sensitivity on-chip detection cell for environmental analysis" as part of the Beaufort Marine Research awards. At the end of her internship programme Lucinda presented her work at the Hamilton/Beaufort Symposium in both oral and poster formats.

Tony Blake - 2010 Undergraduate Intern

Tony Blake was awarded a Beaufort Undergraduate Internship at the end of his second year in DCU where he is studying for a BEng in Electronic Engineering. Tony spent his internship under the supervisioin of Prof. Alan Smeaton and Prof. Noel O'Connor and he completed a project entitled "A Visual Platform for Environmental Monitoring" as part of the Beaufort Marine Research awards. At the end of his internship programme Tony presented his work at the Hamilton/Beaufort Symposium in both oral and poster formats.

Mary O'Sullivan - 2009 Undergraduate Intern

Mary O'Sullivan was awarded a Beaufort Undergraduate Internship at the end of her third year in DCU where she is studying for a BSc in Applied Physics. Mary spent her internship under the supervisioin of Prof. Colette McDonagh and Dr. Robert Copperwhite and she completed a project entitled "Characterisation of Photocurable Sol-gel Materials for Microfluidic Applications" as part of the Beaufort Marine Research awards. At the end of her internship programme Mary presented her work at the Hamilton/Beaufort Symposium in both oral and poster formats.

Christina Doherty - 2009 Undergraduate Intern

Christina Doherty was awarded a Beaufort Undergraduate Internship at the end of her second year in DCU where she is studying for a BSc in Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences. Christina spent her internship under the supervisioin of Prof. Dermot Diamond and Dr. Yuliya Shakalisava. She completed a project entitled "Development of Novel Methods for the Determination of Microbiological Contamination of Water" as part of the Beaufort Marine Research awards. At the end of her internship programme Christina presented her work at the Hamilton/Beaufort Symposium in both oral and poster formats.

Jonathan Collins - 2009 Undergraduate Intern

Jonathan Collins was awarded a Beaufort Undergraduate Internship at the end of his third year in DCU where she is studying for a BSc in Athletic Training and Therapy. Jonathan spent his internship under the supervisioin of Prof. Fiona Regan. He completed a project entitled "Testing the performance of sensors in a marine environment" as part of the Beaufort Marine Research awards. At the end of his internship programme Jonathan presented his work at the Hamilton/Beaufort Symposium in both oral and poster formats.

Manika Poply - 2008 Undergraduate Intern

Manika Poply was awarded a Beaufort Undergraduate Internship at the end of her second year in DCU where she is studying for a BSc in Biotechnology. Manika spent her internship under the supervisioin of Prof. Dermot Diamond and Dr. Yuliya Shakalisava. She completed a project entitled " Development of a microfluidic device for microbiological monitoring of water" as part of the Beaufort Marine Research awards. At the end of her internship programme Manika presented her work at the Hamilton/Beaufort Symposium in both oral and poster formats.

Past Members of MESTECH

Aine Moyna - Post Graduate Researcher

Aine Moyna is currently a third year post graduate student in Dublin City University. She carried out her undergraduate studies in Letterkenny Institute of technology where she graduated with a BSc (Hons) degree in Analytical Science in 2004. Following graduation, she commenced work as a quality control analyst in Norbrook Laboratories in Newry for 6 months before moving to Helsinn Birex in Blanchardstown where she worked for two years. In December 2007, she commenced work on a PhD based on the development of a capillary ion chromatography system for the separation of small ions with focus placed on analysis of environmental samples such as seawater.

Edwina Stack - Post Graduate Researcher

Edwina Stack graduated with a degree in Biochemistry in 2006 from University College Cork after which she completed an MSc in Biomedical Diagnostics at Dublin City University. Edwina began working for Prof. Richard O'Kennedy on the Beaufort project entitled "Development of genetically engineered, highly stable and specific bio-recognition ligands for detection of marine contaminants". This project is funded by the Beaufort Marine Initiative and is carried out in collaboration with Professor Chris Elliot of Queen's University Belfast. Edwina has also participated in the running of the BDI Education and Outreach Primary School Science Programme Workshops, 2007/8.

Declan Moran - NCSR Centre Manager

Declan Moran was the Centre Manager for the NCSR from 2009 - 2012. He was was previously employed by Bristol–Myers Squibb Company. The main interests in his career have centred around analytical method development with a strong emphasis on technical transfer between global sites and third party manufacturing operations. Declan has held positions of increasing responsibility in analytical development, technical operations in process control and quality control. The group he led, based at Swords in Ireland consisted of 18 analysts with qualifications from BSc to Post doctoral researchers. Prior to his current role, Declan was embedded at DCU with research oversight and accountability for the five research strands funded in the Centre for Bioanalytical Sciences(CBAS) by public private partnership between BMS and Irish Government agencies.

Antoin Lawlor

Antóin is a research assistant in the Analytical & Environmental Research Group based in the NCSR, DCU and is currently involved in two EPA funded projects. As part of the Monitoring Criteria for Priority Chemicals Leading to Emission Factors project he is developing a simple, stoichastic, risk-based model that can be applied across catchments to predict the relative risk of elevated Priority Substances & Priority Hazardous Substances loading. From April 2011, he will be involved in a scoping study (Assessing, Preventing & Managing Priority & Hazardous Substances in Surface and Groundwaters) to provide a comprehensive review of the current state of knowledge & research in the assessment, management & prevention of Priority Substances & Priority Hazardous Substances in surface and groundwaters. Antóin previously worked on the SmartCoast and DEPLOY projects to develop and deploy a multi-sensor system. These systems are seen as an important building block in the realisation of a wide area autonomous network of sensors capable of monitoring the spatial and temporal distribution of important water quality and environmental target parameters.

Dr. Mirek Macka

Mirek Macka received his Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Tasmania, Australia (1997) and held prestigious research fellowships in Australia (mid-career Australian Council Research Council Fellowship, 2000-2005) and since 2006 in Ireland at the Dublin City University (EC-FP6 senior fellowship and grant "Marie Curie Excellence Grants"). He has published over 130 peer-reviewed papers in international journals and book chapters and is a member of editorial boards of 3 international journals. His research interests include separations by capillary electrophoresis and liquid chromatography, miniaturisation of analytical instrumentation, microfluidics, 'exotic' monoliths, solid-state light sources, and computer-based approaches including numerical fluidic simulations. Mirek worked on WP 3 from June 07 to June 09.

Prof. Brian MacCraith

Prof. Brian MacCraith is the current DCU President and was previously the Director and founder of the National Centre for Sensor Research (1999-2005) and Biomedical Diagnostics Institute (BDI) at DCU (2005-2010 ). The BDI is a Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) Centre for Science, Engineering & Technology (CSET) focused on developing the underpinning science leading to next-generation biomedical diagnostics. The BDI is an academic-industry partnership involving 6 industrial and 4 academic partners. The funding awarded to the BDI includes over €6m from its industry partners and €16.5m from SFI. Brian was involved with WP4: Transduction from October 2005 until July 2010.

Prof. Brett Paull

Prof. Brett Paull received his B.Sc. (Hons) Degree in Environmental Sciences (Environmental Chemistry Option) from Polytechnic Southwest, Plymouth, in 1991. He was awarded a Ph.D from the University of Plymouth 1994. He took up the position of Associate Lecturer in Analytical Chemistry within the Department of Chemistry at the University of Tasmania, Australia in 1995. In January 1998 Prof. Paull moved to the School of Chemical Sciences in DCU and in December 2006 he was promoted to Associate Professor. Prof. Paull is the Director of the Irish Separations Science Cluster. His research interests include Analytical and Environmental Chemistry: Particularly fundamental and applied aspects of separation sciences, including high-performance liquid chromatography, ion chromatography, capillary zone electrophoresis and capillary electrochromatography.

Prof. Colette McDonagh

Colette McDonagh has an honours degree in Experimental Physics from the National University of Ireland at Galway and a Ph.D. in Physics from Trinity College, Dublin. After postdoctoral work at Trinity College and at the Department of Applied Sciences at the University of California at Davis, she was appointed as a Lecturer in the School of Physical Sciences at Dublin City University in 1986. She currently holds the position of Associate Professor. Current Beaufort-related research activity includes development of an optical waveguide platform for microbial sensing and dissolved carbon dioxide sensor for environment monitoring. Prof. McDonagh has > 60 peer-reviewed publications and > 1000 citations.

Dr. Kim Lau

Prof. Kim KT Lau is an associate professor in Department of Applied Chemistry, Xi'an JiaoTong-Liverpool University, China. Prof. Lau received his MSc and PhD from Birkbeck College, University of London. His PhD research programme was in electrochemical biosensor development. Prof. Lau joined Dublin City University (DCU) in 2000 as a research fellow working on European Framework 4 project on developing optical sensors for on-line water quality monitoring. Prof. Lau was an Associate Lecturer in the Department of Chemical Sciences, DCU since 2004. He is also an Adjunct professor of Chemistry department, Northeastern University of China. Prof. Lau is the founding director of The China-Ireland Research Centre for Advanced Materials and Sensor Development, established in Northeastern University of China. The centre includes member research groups from 5 major universities across China including JiaoTung University of China, Shanghai; Northeastern University of China; Three Gorges University, YiChan, China; Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Chinese science Acadamy, Beijing University. Prof. Lau is also the senior research Fellow of The Beaufort Marine Research Award which aims to rollout platforms capable of remote sampling and analysis over extended periods of time and to ultimately produce the building blocks of an 'environmental nervous system' comprised of many distributed sensing devices that share their data in real time on the web, enabling the source of pollution events to be quickly located and remedial action initiated rapidly to minimise the danger to people and contamination of distribution systems.

Prof. Lau's research area is very diverse and includes nano material research, which, among other things, includes synthesis of graphene, quantum dots and conducting polymer nano structure based sensors and actuators. Molecular recognition is another important research area that can be applied in chemical sensors, biosensors and electrochemical sensors. Development of low-cost autonomous deployable sensor platform for environmental sensing has been one of the focuses. These include sensor devices for gas sensing, water quality monitoring and food quality monitoring. Prof. Lau also engages in wearable sensors development for personal health monitoring and for sport application. Conducting polymer based breathing monitor, smart insole, real-time on-fabric sweat analyser, smart bite-guard are among the prototype developed.

Prof. Lau is the named inventor of over 10 patents; he has over 60 peer reviewed publications in international journals. Prof. Lau is the recipient of DCU Research Fellowship Award in 2007. The prestigious award supported the awardees to carry out independent research in DCU with teaching responsibility. He is the winner of the best research paper award in Body sensor Network 2010.

Gabriel Nzulu - Post Graduate Researcher

Gabriel Kofi Nzulu received his Bachelors of Science degree combining a major in Physics and Geology from the University of Ghana, Legon in June 2000. After working as a high school Physics tutor and Physics Examiner for the West African Examinations council for four years, he completed his Master's degree in Materials Physics and Nanotechnology at the Linkoping University, Sweden in 2007. He then pursued other postgraduate certificate courses in areas such as Energy, Environmental Management Systems and Energy, and Sustainability. He begain his PhD at the School of Physical Sciences in DCU, working on the project "Optical waveguide platform for microbial sensing"and his supervisor is Prof. Colette McDonagh.