Explore Life Sciences

Eoin Gill is a director of Calmast STEM Engagement Centre in Waterford Institute of Technology, coming first to the institute as a lecturer in environmental engineering. He is passionate about promoting STEM for all: in the 20 years since the foundation of Calmast, Eoin has been involved in all areas of STEM promotion and has organised thousands of events reaching hundreds of thousands of people of all ages and backgrounds.     Eoin is particularly proud of Maths Week Ireland – the leading such festival in the world - that attracts annual participation of around 400,000 across the island of Ireland and the Robert Boyle Summer School, founded in 2012, which is Ireland's first annual gathering for adults exploring science in our culture. Eoin has been prominent in promoting the life and legacy of Waterford born Boyle in Ireland and abroad and has given many presentations on Boyle to highlight Ireland's scientific heritage including costumed re-enactments of Boyle's Experiments.   During Eoin's time with Calmast the centre has won numerous awards including the Descartes Award for Science Communication 2006, awarded by the European Commission and recently the Education Awards 2021 (Ireland) Best Outreach Award and also in 2021, Highly Commended in THE Awards, the first Irish organisation to be so honoured.     

We recently spoke to Andy Crowley, general manager of Teva.  Andy qualified with first class honours in Mech. Engineering from TCD at 20 years of age. With a love of learning, he continued his education over the years achieving three further Master degrees including an MBA from the University of Limerick. During his student years he worked in the family security business and on graduation moved to the engineering department at Bausch & Lomb, Waterford. He enjoyed 10 years at B&L helping to grow the contact lens business and transferring new products from Europe and the US to Waterford. In 1996, he moved to TEVA Waterford to head up the engineering department and subsequently moved through various operational roles. TEVA is one of the world's leading supplier of generic and branded medicines and the Waterford site now specialises in the development and manufacturing of inhalers for the treatment of respiratory disease. In 2011, he became site General Manager and continues today to lead the company and instil his passion for Operational Excellence to the 650 employees on the site.

Helen is CEO of Junior Achievement Ireland (JAI), working with 30 staff and 3,000 business volunteers each year to inspire and motivate young people to realise their potential by valuing education and gaining an understanding of how to succeed in the world of work. Junior Achievement Ireland (JAI) works with business leaders, students, teachers and other educationalists across 160 supporting organisations to deliver JA programmes to more than 65,000 students in primary and second levels across Ireland annually. Before assuming her current role, Helen enjoyed opportunities to teach and to work across the public, private and voluntary sectors, including roles in two National Governing Bodies of Sport, and at the Irish Sports Council, in the eight years spanning its emergence from voluntary committee to statutory agency. Her doctoral studies focussed on the work of volunteer directors/ board members in non-profits, with a particular emphasis on the governance of sport and the role of voluntary leaders in non-profit organisations. Her clarion call is the need to ensure young people get every opportunity to participate, enjoy and excel in the area of their choosing – be it technology, sport, cultural or academic pursuits – wherever their passions and talents lead them we need to contribute to an environment in which young people can follow their dreams.

We had the pleasure of chatting with Dr Abigail Ruth Freeman who was appointed Director of Strategy and Communications in 2013, and following department restructures in 2018, became Director of Science for Society. Prior to her current appointment, Ruth has held a series of positions at Science Foundation Ireland, including Director of Innovation, Communications & Education and Director of Programmes, Enterprise and International Affairs, with responsibility for overseeing all Science Foundation Ireland research funding programmes and management of funded awards, as well as the Foundation's activities in conjunction with industry and international partners. Ruth joined Science Foundation Ireland as a Scientific Programme Manager in November 2006. Prior to joining the Foundation, Ruth worked as a researcher at Trinity College Dublin (TCD). She holds PhD and Bachelor degrees in Genetics from TCD, where she was awarded a Trinity scholarship, the Eli Lilly Chemistry Prize and the Roberts prize for Biology. Ruth's PhD research, on population genetics in hybrid zones, was funded by a prestigious studentship from the Wellcome Trust and was carried out at TCD and ILRI, Nairobi.

Dr. Barry Fitzgerald, also known as “The Superhero Scientist”, is fascinated by science and the superhero genre. He is a physicist by training, the author of three popular science books (Secret Science of Santa Claus, Secrets of Superhero Science and How to Build an Iron Man Suit), an energetic science communicator, podcaster, and a YouTuber with his channel “The Superhero Scientist” where he shares videos on the science and engineering of superheroes, Star Wars, and other topics. Barry has spoken all around the world about science and superheroes at schools, universities, science festivals, and companies. For instance, he spoke at TEDxBerlin 2019 about “Being a Responsible Superhero”. He has seen the 2012 film The Avengers more than 80 times and his superpower will remain a closely guarded secret.

In this months episode, Rich chats with Mari Cahalane about her work with the BT Young Scientists Competition and the amazing development she has seen in the industry and the growth of the competition. 

Alan manages the Irish Government's life science High Potential Start-Up team who work with the best emerging Bio, Pharma and Medical Device companies in Ireland. He has 30 years global experience living and working in China, Silicon Valley, Taiwan, Korea and Ireland. Alan started his career working for IDA Ireland targeting “C” level executives in US and Asian Multinationals, selling Ireland as a HQ for their EMEA activities, he crossed over to the domestic side of economic development with roles in High Growth Markets, Corporate Communications and the Food sector. MBA graduate from Trinity College Dublin. 

Christine Loscher is a Professor of Immunology at Dublin City University in Ireland. In 2020 she established the DCU Covid-19 Research and Innovation Hub with a key focus on solving the challenges facing society as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. Her research is focused on discovering new anti-inflammatory/anti-allergic compounds for the pharma and food sector and amount other things she is a Principal Investigator in the Food for Health Ireland Technology Centre. She was also previously named in Silicon Republics top 100 Women in STEM.  Today we chat about her work with the Covid-19 Pandemic, her career journey and how she found her calling as an immunologist and what else besides Covid-19 is concerning for immunologists right now.

Waterford native Patsy Carney has more than 30 years' experience in the pharmaceutical industry and has held senior positions in a number of pharma companies in Ireland and UK in both operations and business development. He co-founded pharma company EirGen, which was bought by US company Opko in 2015 for $135m. Carney is now the director of Kinetic Labs, a new purpose-built science innovation centre in Waterford, which acts as a private ‘rent a lab' space for the region.

A Waterford native with a passion for all things Pharma and Engineering related Kevin is the Managing Director of Irish based The Aphex Group. One of the South East's leading young entrepreneurs, over the past four years, Kevin has built a group of companies that provides global life sciences with the high performing talent and tech they need to grow their global business and operations in Ireland.