There’s links here to all the scientists in all the zones we’ve run since November 2012.
Each column can be reordered (click on the title). Or you can always use CTRL-F to search for a particular scientist, topic or zone.
| Name | About me and my work | Zone name | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arlene O'Neill | I make nanosheets that are a 100,000 smaller than a single strand of hair | Space Zone | November 2012 |
| Naomi Elster | I grow cancer cells in the lab and collect tumours from patients so that I can study them and find better ways to treat cancer. | Hydrogen Zone | November 2012 |
| Tim Downing | I work on discovering mutations linked to drug resistance in flesh-eating parasites. | Health Zone | November 2012 |
| Kevin Lomasney | I am interested in finding out if certain bacteria can be used as medicine to help your bowels when you’re suffering from the runs or whether nothing is moving at all!! | Health Zone | November 2012 |
| Kate Twomey | I eavesdrop on deadly bugs that live in the lungs of people with a disease called cystic fibrosis….the bugs “chat” to one another in the lungs and it’s my job to shut them up!! | Health Zone | November 2012 |
| Jean Bourke | I’m a carbohydrate chemist and I make sugars no one has ever made before and, with biologists, try and find out what effect they have on our cells | Health Zone | November 2012 |
| Shane Bergin | I’m a nanoscientist – harnessing the super-dooper from the nitty-gritty! | Hydrogen Zone | November 2012 |
| Enda O'Connell | I use a robot called Janus to work with other scientists trying to find cures for different types of cancer and other diseases. | Health Zone | November 2012 |
| Eileen Diskin | I use samples from flamingo bums to find links between environmental and human health – because polluted environments can cause serious diseases for people! | Hydrogen Zone | November 2012 |
| Andrew Jackson | I study why animals are different shapes and why they do different things. I am particularly interested in how animals that live in social groups resolve fights and cooperate to solve challenges like finding food and avoiding being eaten. | Hydrogen Zone | November 2012 |
| Aggelos Zacharopoulos | I research and teach Renewable Energy and Energy in Buildings at the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland. In my work I am looking for smart ways to generate electricity and heat from the sunlight and also design intelligent buildings that are cheaper to run and better to live in than traditional ones. | Hydrogen Zone | November 2012 |
| Paul Higgins | I am trying to find out: How do magnetic fields on the Sun lead to explosions of hot gas and radiation that endanger satellites and astronauts on space-walk? | Space Zone | November 2012 |
| Eugene Hickey | I lecture to undergraduate students and I work as part of a research group that looks for new planets around distant stars. | Space Zone | November 2012 |
| David McKeown | I work on ways of moving spacecraft around in space. It is all lasers and rockets *pew* *pew* | Space Zone | November 2012 |
| Colin Johnston | I talk about space and other cool stuff. | Space Zone | November 2012 |
| Sinead Cullen | My work involves making new biological tests to try diagnose one of the worlds biggest killers, heart disease. | Nanotechnology Zone | November 2013 |
| Karen McCarthy | My work is all about about tiny compartments inside bacteria, which work like little factories – meaning there’s huge potential! | Helium Zone | November 2013 |
| Angela Stevenson | I use robots to collect and observe sea urchins that live in deep-sea coral reefs (1500m below the ocean’s surface!) so that we can better understand, manage, and conserve these vulnerable habitats | Helium Zone | November 2013 |
| Sive Finlay | I study weird mammals from Madagascar called tenrecs which look like shrews and hedgehogs but are actually more closely related to elephants! | Lithium Zone | November 2013 |
| Michael Nolan | Using large computers we simulate the properties of new, as yet unknown materials, to predict if they can be used in the production of hydrogen or other fuels. | Lithium Zone | November 2013 |
| Emma Cahill | I am one of the many neuroscientists trying to figure out how addictive drugs, like cocaine, change people’s behaviour and in the long term can cause addiction. | Lithium Zone | November 2013 |
| Ciara Keane | I look at the fight between immune cells & infectious diseases | Lithium Zone | November 2013 |
| Cathal Cummins | I am an applied mathematician and I solve all sorts of physics problems using maths. | Lithium Zone | November 2013 |
| Eoin O Colgain | I work on supergravity theories, essentially attempts to unify gravity with other forces. | Space Zone | November 2013 |
| Jessamyn Fairfield | I’m a nanoscientist, so I take nanomaterials and apply light and electric fields to see what happens. | Nanotechnology Zone | November 2013 |
| Eleanor Holmes | I make and test electronic devices built from graphene to probe the properties of this century’s “Wonder Material” | Nanotechnology Zone | November 2013 |
| Christian Wirtz | I build nanostructures from atoms and molecules… kind of like using LEGO, but even the finished products are smaller than a virus. | Nanotechnology Zone | November 2013 |
| Adam Murphy | I’m a Ph.D. student in DCU using lasers to make very tiny shapes with silver that can be used to detect disease | Nanotechnology Zone | November 2013 |
| Stephen Scully | Development of new telescopes for the European Space Agency | Space Zone | November 2013 |
| Lauren Mc Keown | I am a first year astrophysics PhD student in Trinity College and I am investigating the magnetic structure of the atmospheres of cool giant stars. | Space Zone | November 2013 |
| Joseph Roche | I love science and I love talking. I think I might have found my perfect job because I spend most of my time talking about science 🙂 | Space Zone | November 2013 |
| Shane Mc Guinness | I work with some of the most endangered species on the planet and investigate how they can come into conflict with farming communities living near their habitats. | Helium Zone | November 2013 |
| colm bracken | I am in my final year as a PhD student at N.U.I. Maynooth, researching new simulation methods for instruments for far-infrared astronomy. | Space Zone | November 2013 |
| Maria McNamara | Helium Zone | November 2013 | |
| Gabriele De Chiara | Schroedinger’s cat, quantum teleportation and other weird things of the quantum universe | Helium Zone | November 2013 |
| Tríona O'Connell | I study the sugars on the surface cells and how they change as a cell dies | Beryllium Zone | November 2014 |
| Ahmed Osman | PhD Student, in Green Chemistry. I am working in the area of production of (New) and (Environment Friend) fuel | Sustainability Zone | November 2014 |
| Michel Dugon | I have the most exciting job in the world: I study how venomous animals such as snakes, scorpions, spiders or centipedes have developed their venom glands, their fangs and stingers and how they inject toxins (venom) into their prey | Evolution Zone | November 2014 |
| Kevin Healy | I try to figure out what makes predators so good at catching their dinner and what makes prey good at avoiding becoming dinner. | Evolution Zone | November 2014 |
| Chloe Kinsella | I am investigating if climate change will affect the plants and animals that live along Irelands coastlines. | Evolution Zone | November 2014 |
| Anthea Lacchia | I hunt extinct squid-like creatures preserved in rocks and give them funny-sounding Latin names. | Evolution Zone | November 2014 |
| Shikha Sharma | The aim of my work is to help save lives by developing a blood test device for cancer detection that will help us to catch it early, when treatment is more likely to be successful. | Beryllium Zone | November 2014 |
| James Sullivan | A mixture of research, teaching and school administration. | Sustainability Zone | November 2014 |
| George Dowson | I’m a chemist working on ways to make our future fuels more environmentally friendly and sustainable. | Sustainability Zone | November 2014 |
| Francesca Paradisi | The world of extremophilic organisms is fascinating, they can help solving some of our industrial problems without much effort! | Sustainability Zone | November 2014 |
| Nitheen Kaperi | Designing molecules towards a smarter tomorrow. | Sustainability Zone | November 2014 |
| Sean Kelly | I study birds on tropical islands in Indonesia, trying to learn more about how birds evolve into new and different forms | Evolution Zone | November 2014 |
| Eoin Carley | I study explosions in the sun’s atmosphere and how these affect technology at Earth. | Boron Zone | November 2014 |
| Lydia Bach | I am catching, collecting, counting and dissecting fish, crabs, worms & other crawly creatures, to study food webs in seashores across the UK. | Boron Zone | November 2014 |
| Kevin Motherway | Making sure that people operating mines, power stations, pharmaceutical plants, landfill and factories can all make our day to day lives better, but without the environment and future generations paying the price! | Beryllium Zone | November 2014 |
| John Wenger | I teach chemistry at university and also do research on air pollution and climate change. | Beryllium Zone | November 2014 |
| Colin Johnston | I explain the amazing worlds of astronomy and space sciences to everyone and anyone. | Beryllium Zone | November 2014 |
| Áine Broderick | I look at indoor air quality before and after people make their house warmer. | Boron Zone | November 2014 |
| Ciarán O'Brien | I look at the bacteria that grow in your gut (mostly by rooting through someone’s poop, yay!), and how they can affect your physical and mental health. | Boron Zone | November 2014 |
| Victoria Simms | As a developmental psychologist I carry out experiments to work how kids think and learn. | Boron Zone | November 2014 |
| Pierre Casaubielh | I am helping in developing lectures for online learning to facilitate students and companies around the world having access to knowledge | Nitrogen Zone | November 2015 |
| Uday Bangavadi | The invisible Light which makes you see the world. | Nitrogen Zone | November 2015 |
| Sinead Balgobin | I’m trying to make new reactions, so that we have new (hopefully better) ways of making medicines. | Drug Synthesis | November 2015 |
| Irene Regan | I am a Medical Scientist (Laboratory Haematologist- that’s a very big word!!!), I look at blood! I also lecture and I am President of the professional body for Medical and Clinical Scientists in Ireland- I get to wear a big chain sometimes, a bit like a Lord Mayor!! | Nitrogen Zone | November 2015 |
| Anne Moore | My passion is to make vaccines that work and prevent children getting sick or dying from infectious diseases. | Drug Synthesis | November 2015 |
| Florence McCarthy | We make new heterocycles to arrest cell cycles with the ultimate aim of developing drugs to treat diseases where the cell cycle is out of kilter. | Drug Synthesis | November 2015 |
| Mark Collins | I work in Pharmaceuticals, from early stage development to advanced clinical trials! | Drug Synthesis | November 2015 |
| Neil Day | I ensure that we have enough manufacturing knowledge about how medicines or synthesised and formulated | Drug Synthesis | November 2015 |
| Aisling Kerr | I fire lasers at nanosized particles to see how they react | Nanoscience Zone | November 2015 |
| Chloe Huseyin | Bacteria aren’t the only things that live in your gut! I work on some of the other stuff. | Nitrogen Zone | November 2015 |
| Ricardo Segurado | I use maths to work out how things make you healthy or give you diseases | Nitrogen Zone | November 2015 |
| Anil Jain | I build new and very fast electrical circuits using tiny transistors (which are invisible to human eyes) to increase the speed of internet (a very small part of it anyways). | Nanoscience Zone | November 2015 |
| Leona Mc Girr | Nanoscience Zone | November 2015 | |
| Ruth Hamill | Working on ways to make meat and meat products healthier and tastier | Food Science Zone | November 2015 |
| John Gleeson | I’m trying to make a pill from compounds from in milk, chicken and fish to help prevent heart attacks! | Food Science Zone | November 2015 |
| Emma Feeney | One of the things I do is looking at cheese intake, and how it impacts our nutrition and our health. I’m interested in how people taste things as well | Food Science Zone | November 2015 |
| Dilip Rai | Structure-Function of health benefitting molecules in our food. | Food Science Zone | November 2015 |
| Micki Mitchell | I diagnose diseases using lazer light | Nanoscience Zone | November 2015 |
| Andrew Quigley | Finding the amount of vitamins and fatty acids in milk using analytical chemistry | Food Science Zone | November 2015 |
| Claire O'Connell | I make tiny glass cases for luminescent dyes that attach to rare cells in blood to make them easier to find. | Nanoscience Zone | November 2015 |
| Mike Whitfield | These days I use data to help the scientific journal I work for find more readers, but before that I used computer models to predict how farming in Ireland might affect the environment, and climate change. | Smart Data Zone | November 2016 |
| Catherine Keena | Farming Zone | November 2016 | |
| Annette Neill | I keep track of the quality of the Laboratory service and the small hand held devices that the Medical staff use | Smart Data Zone | November 2016 |
| Dave Concannon | Creating Real-time data visualisations to help deliver HIV care in rural South Africa | Smart Data Zone | November 2016 |
| Jaine Blayney | I uncover new patterns and trends in big data to help understand why some patients respond well to treatment, yet others don’t. | Smart Data Zone | November 2016 |
| Julio Gutierrez | I use very big computers to undertand how materials work and to desing new materials for future applications. | Smart Data Zone | November 2016 |
| Dara Stanley | Farming Zone | November 2016 | |
| Gavin Coleman | I try to understand the types of interactions between nanoparticles and the environment, and am developing a technique to detect their benefits and dangers. | Oxygen Zone | November 2016 |
| Laura Devaney | Farming Zone | November 2016 | |
| Karen | Oxygen Zone | November 2016 | |
| Ronan Byrne | Farming Zone | November 2016 | |
| Alan Matthews | Farming Zone | November 2016 | |
| Erin Jo Tiedeken | Farming Zone | November 2016 | |
| Mark Kennedy | I work on Cataclysmic Variables, which are systems that have 2 stars in them, and every now and again, they explode! | Oxygen Zone | November 2016 |
| Caitriona Maher | Farming Zone | November 2016 | |
| Michel Destrade | I try to model, describe and predict the mechanical behaviour of soft solids such as gels and soft tissues, including the skin and the brain. | Oxygen Zone | November 2016 |
| Roisin Jones | I work in Impurity Profiling, which basically means seeing if you can track how criminals are making illegal drugs by looking at the by-products that are formed while making them. | Oxygen Zone | November 2016 |
| Shannon Fullbrook | Looking at the smaller picture | Diagnosis Zone | November 2017 |
| Sarah Guerin | Making crystals from amino acids (building blocks of biology) and pressing them to generate electricity. | Fluorine Zone | November 2017 |
| Kieran Fraser | Creating a personal butler to handle all the incoming notifications, emails and messages on my phone so I don't have to! | Fluorine Zone | November 2017 |
| Kathryn Schoenrock | Marine botanist (seaweed enthusiast) and bipolar scientist. | Fluorine Zone | November 2017 |
| Joanne Duffy | I force bacteria to make glue by stealing genes from barnacles, and inserting them into bacteria. | Fluorine Zone | November 2017 |
| Chris Werner | I work with past climate datasets, and manipulate them using coding languages so industry and other scientists can use them and make decisions | Fluorine Zone | November 2017 |
| Emma Hanley | In my PhD project I am trying to figure out what will Ireland's energy system look like in the future. Using a computer model I create different scenarios into the future. My PhD project is part of a wider project with different Universities (Queen's University in Belfast, University College Cork and North Carolina State University in the USA). For example if I compare a scenario where our energy system doesn't change too much from what it is now and compare this to a scenario in which we use a lot of renewable energy, so energy from things like solar panels, bioenergy from plants and wind turbines instead of fossil fuels such as petrol and diesel for transport or coal for making electricity it would give us two very different futures. My goal in particular is to find what is the role of electricity for things like heating our homes and business or powering our cars and what are the different challenges to what we call low-carbon energy futures. | Energy Zone | November 2017 |
| Karla Dussan | Finding better and new ways to use organic wastes and biomass to produce energy and chemicals. From the electricity we use at home, to the gasoline for our cars, with lots of possibilities in between. | Energy Zone | November 2017 |
| Shane Mcdonagh | I am a researcher in renewable energy at the Environmental Research Institute in University College Cork. My work is about a new way of storing energy so that we can use more renewable energy like wind turbines and solar panels than ever before. I try to answer questions like how expensive will it be, where is the best place to build it, and new ideas to make it more effective. | Energy Zone | November 2017 |
| Katie Benson | I am a geneticist; a gene detective! | Diagnosis Zone | November 2017 |
| Matthew Flood | Biomedical Engineering PhD Student | Diagnosis Zone | November 2017 |
| Ciara O' Donovan | Looking at the gut microbes in athletes. | Food Zone | November 2017 |
| Yang Li | Burn different fuels | Energy Zone | November 2017 |
| Hugh J. Byrne | Irish Scientist, originally trained in physics, now working a lot in areas of nanoparticle cell interactions, and biomedical applications of spectroscopy | Diagnosis Zone | November 2017 |
| Stephen Rhatigan | I try to develop new materials which can convert solar energy into fuel. To do this I use computer simulations which run on giant supercomputers. With these simulations I can see what is happening at the atomic scale. | Energy Zone | November 2017 |
| Yvonne Lenighan | I am investigating if grass-fed beef is healthier than grain-fed beef | Food Zone | November 2017 |
| Ioannis Zabetakis | Food Chemistry; Biochemistry and Nutrition | Food Zone | November 2017 |
| Gonzalo Delgado-Pando | Food science. Specifically meat science | Food Zone | November 2017 |
| Golnaz Ezzati | Researcher and a PhD student in cleaning soil and water from (agricultural) wastes | Food Zone | November 2017 |
| Elaine Kennedy | I'm a research nutritionist investigating if milk proteins can help people control their blood sugar levels which is really important for people with diabetes. | Food Zone | November 2017 |
| James Brown | I work on understanding and maybe one day treating breast cancer. | Diagnosis Zone | November 2017 |