Prof. Anya Belz is Full Professor of Computer Science at Dublin City University's School of Computing and Science Lead at ADAPT Research Centre. A leading NLP researcher with PhD-level expertise, she specializes in natural language generation, evaluation methodologies, and multimodal systems. Recipient of multiple best paper awards and NAACL Test of Time Award nomination. Research innovations include foundational work on statistical language generation (deployed in weather forecasting systems), comparative evaluation frameworks, vision-language integration, and reproducibility quantification. Current EPSRC-funded ReproHum project coordinates 20 global labs studying evaluation consistency. Achievements : Developed industry-deployed generation systems for accessibility applications Pioneered cross-modal alignment techniques for image description Authored 100+ publications spanning generation, evaluation, and reproducibility
Professor Francis Butler is a Full Professor at University College Dublin's School of Biosystems and Food Engineering, where he has been since 1990. His academic roles include research leadership in food safety, food chain integrity, and microbial risk assessment. He leads the UCD Institute for Food and Health and the UCD Centre for Food Safety as a Principal Investigator. Education: BE, Grad Dip University Teaching & Learning, MBA, and PhD from University College Dublin. Research Focus: His work centers on food safety hazards, quantitative risk assessment, and next-generation sequencing for pathogen identification. Recent projects include Listeria monocytogenes growth modeling, norovirus in oysters, and hepatitis E in pork products. He has secured over €6 million in research grants, including EU-funded projects like FOODINTEGRITY and SIGMACHAIN. Awards & Recognition: European Food Safety Authority Fellowship, Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellowship, and UCD Teaching Grant. He coordinates international educational programs, including the UCD MSC Food Safety and Risk Analysis. Professional Activities: Member of EFSA advisory committees, editorial boards (e.g., Microbial Risk Analysis ), and international conference chairs. His work bridges academia, industry, and policy to enhance food safety standards globally.
John Cotter is a Full Professor of Finance and Chair in Quantitative Finance at University College Dublin's Smurfit School of Business. He holds a PhD from Queen's University Belfast and prior academic roles include Associate Professor (2006-2012) and Senior Lecturer (2004-2006). His research focuses on volatility modeling, risk management, and asset pricing with applications in equity, real estate, and derivative markets. Cotter directs the Centre for Financial Markets and the Financial Mathematics Computation Cluster (FMC2), a multi-university research initiative funded by Science Foundation Ireland. Education: BComm and MEconSc from University College Cork, PhD in Finance from Queen's University Belfast. Research interests span asset pricing, volatility modeling, risk management, and financial market integration. His work has been published in top journals like Journal of Banking and Finance and Journal of International Money and Finance . He has secured grants including the ADAPT Phase 2 project (2021-2026). Cotter advises the European Securities Markets Authority (ESMA) and has consulted for numerous organizations globally. Notable awards include the UCD Outstanding Educator Teaching Award and UCD School of Business Research Contribution Award. He serves as Associate Editor for three journals and has supervised numerous PhD students through FMC2.
Dimitra Psychogiou is a Full Professor of Microwave Engineering at University College Cork and Principal Investigator at Tyndall National Institute's CONNECT Centre in Cork, Ireland. She leads the Advanced RF Technology Group, driving innovation in reconfigurable RF systems for next-generation wireless networks. Her academic credentials include: Dipl.-Eng. in Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Patras (2008) Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, ETH Zurich (2013) Prof. Psychogiou's research pioneers reconfigurable microwave filters , non-reciprocal RF components , and additive manufacturing for antenna systems . Her work bridges theoretical microwave engineering with practical implementations in 5G/6G front-ends, emphasizing sustainability through hyperflexible filtering architectures that reduce hardware complexity and energy consumption. Key innovations include acoustic-wave resonator filters and 3D-printed RF components enabling unprecedented miniaturization. Analysis of her 2022-2025 publications reveals a strategic shift toward multifunctional RF integration , where filtering coexists with isolation, amplification, and switching in single modules. This trend addresses critical industry needs for compact, software-defined radio front-ends in satellite communications and IoT networks, with increasing emphasis on reflectionless topologies and spatiotemporal modulation techniques. Her scientific recognition includes: 2023 MTT-S Outstanding Young Engineer Award 2021 Roberto Sorrentino Prize 2021 SFI Research Professorship 2020 NSF CAREER Award 2020 URSI Young Scientist Award UC Boulder Junior Faculty Research Award Prof. Psychogiou actively shapes her field through leadership roles as Chair of IEEE MTT-13 Committee and Secretary of USNC-URSI Commission D, while serving as Associate Editor for IEEE MWCL and IJMWT. Her group collaborates extensively with semiconductor foundries and wireless infrastructure companies to transition lab innovations to commercial applications. The Advanced RF Technology Group operates state-of-the-art facilities for GaAs MMIC prototyping, 3D-printed RF component fabrication, and full-wave electromagnetic characterization, supporting Ireland's strategic position in European telecommunications research.
Conor Ryan is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science & Information Systems at the University of Limerick. He is a Science Foundation Ireland-funded Investigator since 2002 and a member of multiple research centres including Lero – the Irish Software Research Centre and the Limerick Digital Cancer Research Centre. His research focuses on Genetic Programming, Grammatical Evolution, and their applications in domains like healthcare analytics, digital circuit design, and financial modeling. He has authored over 250 publications, with recent work emphasizing automated feature selection in medical diagnostics, neural architecture search, and blockchain ecosystems. Teaching includes courses on Foundations of Computer Science and Computer Games Programming. Research interests span evolutionary computation, machine learning, and interdisciplinary applications. Collaborations involve global institutions, reflecting his work's impact across computer science, engineering, and healthcare. His research has addressed challenges in breast cancer diagnosis via genetic algorithms, cryptocurrency volatility prediction using random forests, and automated generation of digital circuits. Ongoing projects explore interpretability in AI, energy-efficient computing, and sustainable transport systems through predictive analytics. Professional memberships include roles in the Centre for Research Training in Foundations of Data Science and the Data-Driven Computer Engineering Research Centre, underscoring his commitment to interdisciplinary innovation.
Dr. Jon Gruda is an Assistant Professor and Lecturer in Organisational Behaviour at Maynooth University's School of Business. He holds a PhD in Management from emlyon Business School (France) and a joint Dr. rer. nat. in Psychology from Goethe University Frankfurt. His research focuses on relational leadership, dark leadership traits, anxiety in the workplace, and personality psychology, with a strong emphasis on integrating machine learning and AI methodologies. Gruda has been recognized with prestigious awards, including selection for the Lindau Nobel Laureates Meeting in Economic Sciences (2020). His interdisciplinary work includes predicting anxiety and personality traits via social media data analysis. He serves as an Associate Editor for journals like Personality and Individual Differences and Frontiers in Psychology . Education PhD in Management, emlyon Business School (2012–2017) Dr. rer. nat. in Psychology, Goethe University Frankfurt (2012–2017) MSc in Affective Neuroscience, Maastricht University (2018) MSc in Management Research, emlyon Business School (2012–2014) Triple MSc in Management, City University London/ESCP Europe (2010–2012) BSc in International Business & Management, University of Groningen (2007–2010) Research Interests Gruda’s work bridges leadership studies, personality psychology, and data science. Key areas include: Dark leadership traits (e.g., narcissism, Machiavellianism) and their organizational impacts Machine learning applications for detecting anxiety and personality traits via social media Cross-cultural studies on leadership perceptions and attachment orientations Impact of physiological/psychosocial factors on leadership effectiveness Publications & Projects Recent projects include predicting state-level health outcomes linked to narcissism and developing algorithms to track anxiety using Twitter data. Over 20 peer-reviewed articles since 2017 highlight his contributions to organizational behavior and computational social science. Awards 7th Lindau Nobel Laureates Meeting on Economic Sciences (2020) Benedictine University Award (Academy of Management, 2020) Wharton Global Faculty Development Program (2020) Grants & Collaborations Gruda leads projects on pro-environmental behavior and collaborates with the National Care Experience Programme on healthcare feedback analysis. Seed funding includes €301,930 for computational text analytics in healthcare. Labs & Teams Interdisciplinary research collaborations span psychology, data science, and public health, with a focus on applying machine learning to organizational challenges.
Zohreh Pourzolfaghar is an Assistant Professor in Management Information Systems (MIS) at the School of Business, Maynooth University (MU). She serves as Director of the IT-Enable Innovation Programme and cluster lead for the Digital Construction cluster at the Innovation Value Institute (IVI). She is also a member of Lero, the SFI Research Centre for Software. Education: PhD in Project Management (University Putra Malaysia, 2011); MSc in Management Systems and Productivity; BSc in Software Engineering. Research Interests : Focuses on digital transformation for SMEs, information management in construction, and smart city architectures. Leads EU-funded projects like EnTrust (agri-data governance), DIGI+ (sustainable digital transformation), and DigiFABs (food & beverage SMEs). Co-PI for projects such as GDI-IE (genomic data infrastructure) and PERFORM (digital retail innovation). Grants & Awards : Secured funding from SFI, Enterprise Ireland, and EU. Notable awards include the BIM Hero Award (2022) and Research Engaged Award (2022). Teaching : Courses include Digital Business, Digital Technology Governance, and Enterprise Architecture. Advises PhD students in MIS and digital transformation. Industry Collaboration : Works with firms like ArcDox and Corballis Technologies on BIM standards and data governance. Active in national and EU policy networks, including NSAI committees.
Aura Istrate is a Lecturer/Assistant Professor in Urban Planning & Sustainable Urbanism at the School of Architecture, Planning and Environmental Policy at University College Dublin (UCD). With an international background spanning multiple continents, she conducts interdisciplinary research on sustainable urban development, focusing on active mobility, nature-based solutions, and climate-neutral cities. She teaches GIS and urban planning modules while coordinating several significant research projects across European and Asian contexts. University College Dublin, School of Architecture, Planning and Environmental Policy Primary Coordinator of C-NEWTRAL (Horizon MSCA-DN 2024-2028) Co-Leader of REALLOCATE (Horizon Europe project 2023-2027) Principal Investigator for BIODIVERSA+ projects (NatureScape and NBS4AQUAMISSION) Educated at the University of Architecture and Urban Planning 'Ion Mincu' in Bucharest (BA and MA) and the University of Liverpool (PhD), Dr. Istrate further enhanced her teaching credentials with a Professional Certificate in University Teaching & Learning from UCD. Her academic journey reflects a strong foundation in architectural and urban planning principles combined with specialized expertise in sustainable urbanism. Dr. Istrate's research focuses on smart and sustainable urbanism, particularly examining active mobility, livable streets, green public spaces, and nature-based solutions in urban planning. Her work employs participatory, geospatial, and mixed methods to inform smart communities and the transition to climate-neutral cities. She has practical international experience in urban design and planning, with ongoing collaborations spanning European and Asian countries, currently teaching and researching across cultures in UCD and UCD's International Colleges (CDIC). Her recent publications reveal a strong focus on street vitality, urban heat adaptation, and nature-based solutions. The research demonstrates methodological diversity combining quantitative spatial analysis with qualitative community engagement approaches. Her work spans multiple geographic contexts, with particular expertise in Chinese urban environments and European cities, showing how urban planning concepts need to be contextualized for different cultural settings. The articles consistently address climate adaptation challenges through innovative approaches like urban nature games and fine-grained street classification systems. Dr. Istrate serves as a PhD thesis supervisor and is actively involved in major research initiatives including C-NEWTRAL (as Primary Coordinator), REALLOCATE (as Co-Leader), and BIODIVERSA+ projects (as PI for NatureScape and NBS4AQUAMISSION). Her grant portfolio includes Horizon Europe projects and other significant funding that supports interdisciplinary research on climate-neutral urban development. She has coordinated multiple teaching modules including Planning Design & Development, GIS & Planning, Intro to Spatial Planning, and Local Planning Studio. She leads international research collaborations and maintains active partnerships across various European and Asian countries. Her work bridges academic research with practical urban planning applications, particularly through her focus on research-by-design approaches and participatory methods that engage communities in the planning process. She has served as a lecturer, tutor, or teaching assistant across departments of Architecture, Planning, Environmental Studies, Global Studies, and Human Geography in Ireland, the UK, Czechia, Sweden, China, and Romania since 2010.
Rozenn Dahyot is a Professor of Computer Science at Maynooth University within the Faculty of Science & Engineering. She previously held roles as Assistant and Associate Professor in Statistics at Trinity College Dublin (2008-2021) and Lecturer in Computer Science (2005-2008). Her research interests bridge Digital Signal Processing, Computer Vision, Machine Learning, and Statistical Analysis. She organized the European Signal Processing Conference (EUSIPCO2021) in Dublin and served as President of the Irish Pattern Recognition and Classification Society (IPRCS) from 2014-2020. Her work spans topics like semantic scene understanding, CNN compression, and medical image segmentation. Key contributions include advancements in graph-based image analysis, reinforcement learning optimization, and AI-driven systems for disaster management. Dahyot is a member of IEEE, ACM, and EURASIP, contributing to both academic and industrial collaborations.
Dr. Andrew Hines is a Researcher at the School of Computer Science, University College Dublin, specializing in machine learning applications for signal processing in speech, audio, and video domains. His work focuses on Quality of Experience (QoE) modeling, speech quality assessment, and immersive media analysis. He has held leadership roles in European COST Actions like Qualinet and CryptoAction, and previously worked in industry as a Director of Engineering. University: University College Dublin Role: Director of Research, Innovation and Impact Key Collaborations: IEEE (Senior Member), Audio Engineering Society (Ireland) Research interests center on machine learning for QoE optimization, audio-visual integration, and healthcare applications like heart sound classification and stroke rehabilitation. His recent publications explore self-supervised learning, neural speech codecs, and contextual factors in speech/audio quality assessment. Scientific contributions include awards like IEEE Senior Membership, and his work spans both academic research and industrial engineering in finance and aviation sectors. He leads the QxLab research team at UCD and develops open-source platforms such as WARP-Q and AQP for quality metrics.
Dr. Shirley Coyle is an Assistant Professor in the School of Electronic Engineering at Dublin City University (DCU) and Programme Chair for the BSc Global Challenges. She holds a BEng in Electronic Engineering from DCU (2000) and a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from NUI Maynooth (2005). Her career includes roles as a Telecoms Engineer at Siemens, Research Fellow at the National Centre for Sensor Research, and Team Leader of Wearable Sensors in the INSIGHT Centre for Data Analytics. She also studied part-time at the Grafton Academy for Fashion Design and later founded a consultancy in wearable technologies. Her research focuses on smart garments, wearable sensors, and sustainable textiles, with applications in healthcare, sports performance, and S.T.E.A.M. integration. Key interests include developing wearable chemical sensors, energy-autonomous sensing systems, and IoT-enabled rehabilitation devices. She has pioneered work on wearable sensors for monitoring chronic diseases, athlete training, and home rehabilitation using VR. Dr. Coyle’s work spans interdisciplinary collaboration, combining biomedical engineering with textile design. Her contributions include innovations in electrospun textiles, self-powered sensors, and sensor integration with microfluidics. She has held leadership roles in DCU’s Governing Authority and promotes STEM education through design-focused initiatives.
Rosemary Monahan is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Maynooth University and an affiliate of the Hamilton Institute. She holds BSc and MSc degrees from University College Dublin and a PhD from Dublin City University. As Maynooth University's institutional lead for ADAPT (SFI Research Centre for AI-Driven Digital Content Technology), she focuses on advancing software dependability through formal methods and AI integration. Her research interests include safety-critical systems, dependable software, formal verification, and computational thinking education. She co-founded the VerifyThis competition series and leads projects such as MAIVV (Modular AI Verification and Visualisation) funded by SFI, and VALU3S (Verification and Validation of Automated Systems) funded by Horizon 2020. She has secured over €2.5M in EU funding for the Erasmus Mundus programs in dependable software systems. Monahan’s educational contributions include pioneering computational thinking resources (CoCoA and InSPECT projects) and teaching modules on software verification and rigorous software processes. She supervises PhD students in data science and advanced networks and collaborates with institutions like INRIA, Microsoft Research, and Amazon Web Services. Her professional roles include editorships in journals like Science of Computer Programming and leadership in conferences like iFM and FMICS. She actively promotes gender equality in computing through initiatives like INGENIC and TechMate toolkits.
Jennifer Edmond is Associate Professor of Digital Humanities and co-director of the Trinity Center for Digital Humanities at Trinity College Dublin, where she also directs the MPhil in Digital Humanities and Culture. She holds a PhD in Germanic Languages and Literatures from Yale University and specializes in applying advanced methods and infrastructures for arts and humanities research. Her research focuses on Digital Humanities, Research Infrastructures, Open Science, Cultural Heritage, and Knowledge Technologies. She has developed significant expertise in European research policy, having coordinated the €6.5m CENDARI FP7 project and participated in numerous EU initiatives including PARTHENOS, Europeana Cloud, and the Computational Literary Studies Infrastructure (CLS Infra). Dr. Edmond maintains an active publication record exploring digital scholarly editing, privacy in literary texts, open science practices, and cultural heritage narratives. Her recent work demonstrates a strong focus on the intersection of technology and democracy, digital ethics, and innovative methodologies for humanities research. Awards and Honors: Named one of Ireland's five 'Champions of EU Research' (2012) She served as President of DARIAH-EU's Board of Directors (2018-2022) and represented the organization on the European Commission's Open Science Policy Platform. Dr. Edmond has contributed to strategic developments at national and institutional levels, while actively promoting public outreach through various media formats and art installations.
Dr. Selja Seppälä is a Lecturer in Business Analytics within the Department of Business Information Systems at Cork University Business School, University College Cork. She specializes in Natural Language Processing, applied ontology, terminology, and corpus studies with applications across multiple domains including linguistics, legal informatics, biomedical informatics, and education. Her research focuses on developing AI technologies that combine Large Language Models and other NLP techniques with curated ontologies to enhance data quality, transparency and trustworthiness in information systems. Dr. Seppälä currently leads the AI-LIEN project, which uses AI-powered technologies for learning analytics, and collaborates on projects investigating the impact of AI on organizations and legislative review. Natural Language Processing (NLP) Applied Ontology and Terminology Corpus Studies AI Technologies for Information Systems Large Language Models integration Legal Informatics applications Dr. Seppälä's scholarly contributions include 43 publications in international outlets and 27 open-source research artifacts. Her work has secured approximately €500,000 through competitive research grants, demonstrating significant impact in her field. Marie Skłodowska-Curie Career-FIT Fellow (2019-2022) Dr. Seppälä serves on the editorial board of Applied Ontology (IOS Press) and as Communication Co-officer and Substitute Auditor for the International Association for Ontology and its Applications (IAOA). She actively contributes to academic service as a reviewer for journals including the European Journal of Information Systems and Terminology, and regularly participates in program committees for international conferences focused on computational linguistics, natural language processing, applied ontology, and financial technology applications. At UCC, she contributes through the development of the CUBS Canvas Template and membership in the CUBS Digital Learning & Teaching Committee.
Ralf Bierig joined Maynooth University's Computer Science Department in 2017, teaching topics including information retrieval, software testing, interaction design, and virtual reality. He is the programme director of the Higher Diploma in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and User Experience (UX). He earned his BSc (2002) from University of Furtwangen and PhD (2008) from Robert Gordon University. Research Interests His work spans information retrieval, interactive information retrieval, personalisation, information search behavior, usability (UX), and virtual reality (VR). Recent publications focus on multimodal concept indexing, hybrid IR approaches, and contextual adaptation in search systems. Publication Trends His research combines statistical semantics, graph modeling, and multimodal data analysis across academic collaborations in Austria, Germany, and international venues like ECIR and SIGIR.
