Claire O'Connell

1 week ago | irishtimes.com | Claire O'Connell

You are giving a free talk soon in a pub in Dundalk about your research, tell us more. I’m one of the presenters at Pint of Science, which is where speakers give a short talk about their work in the pub. I’ll be speaking about blockchain, and how it can be used in healthcare. I’m doing my PhD in this area at the Regulated Software Research Centre in Dundalk Institute of Technology. It’s basically a platform that logs all the activity on that platform in a ledger.

1 month ago | irishtimes.com | Claire O'Connell

You are a biologist researching blood cancers – when did you develop an interest in science? I grew up in Hungary, and when I was about 12 I read a book by the Hungarian Nobel Prize-winner Albert Szent-Györgyi, who discovered vitamin C. He wrote about how molecules regulate things, and that set my mind on biology. I also enjoyed hiking, and I originally wanted to be an ecologist or a forest engineer, but my parents didn’t think that was a good idea. So I went back to my molecules.

2 months ago | irishtimes.com | Claire O'Connell

Your research focuses on genetics, what sparked your interest in this area? I’ve always loved learning. I think that’s from my Mum. In primary school in Co Waterford, she was my teacher for several years. Going to university, I wanted to study an area where there is a lot to discover, so I chose a degree in human genetics in Trinity College Dublin. What came after that? For my PhD I worked on a project called Target 5000, funded by the charity Fighting Blindness.

Feb 13, 2025 | irishtimes.com | Claire O'Connell

How did you get involved in research into earthquakes? In 2011, I left home in Newcastle, Co Down, to study chemical engineering at Imperial College London, but realised straight away I was not an engineer. I noticed that my friends were having a lot of fun on the geology and geophysics course. My mother is a geologist by training, it was in the background as I was growing up, so I made that switch across.

Jan 30, 2025 | irishtimes.com | Claire O'Connell

What inspired you to become a psychologist? My mum is a clinical psychologist, and my dad moved from clinical psychology into brain research. When I was a kid, I always wanted to be a clinical psychologist, but when I got into my teens I thought maybe it wasn’t cool to do what your parents do and I chose to study history at college. I loved it, but I noticed that I was always really interested in the people in history, the effects that events had on them and why they made particular decisions.