A very significant investment in emerging research talent at University of Limerick has been announced today, as early career researchers receive funding to tackle energy, health, and sustainability challenges.
Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science Simon Harris has this Monday announced an investment of €28.5 million across 53 research projects nationally through the SFI-IRC Pathway programme.
The funding will support Ireland’s next generation research leaders in areas which include cancer, nutrition, politics, history, literature, energy and technology.
In total eight researchers at University of Limerick have been funded to the tune of around €4.3m in the announcement, seven of these early researchers are based at the Bernal Institute.
Congratulations to all of the awardees, they are:
Dr Valeria Nico will receive €551,121 to develop a small scale vibrational energy harvester that can convert kinetic energy from the environment into electrical power.
Dr David McNulty, Ph.D. will receive €549,252 for the ALTERNATE project which will significantly advance state-of-the-art Li–S batteries, to go beyond Lithium-ion batteries in terms of both performance and cost.
Dr Jennifer Cookman will receive €551,528 to use liquid phase electron microscopy to advance medicines such as anti-depressants.
Dr Sarah Guerin will receive €548,301 to develop biomolecular crystals as organic, low-cost, high-performance sensors, that will outperform and phase-out device components containing lead zirconium titanate (PZT.)
Dr. Nanasaheb Thorat has been awarded €551,901 to engineer a human three-dimensional (3D) mini-brain tumor model that can predict how the brain develops and what goes wrong in neurological disorders and diseases.
Dr Soumya Mukherjee, PhD, has been awarded €550,850 for an innovative, high risk/high reward approach to tackle the chemical industry high energy footprint by developing, ionic ultramicroporous polymers, IUPs, for gas and water purifications.
Dr David Madden was awarded €551,300 for his project, titled;
Automated nanoparticle SYNthesis viA Process analyTICal technology driven pathwayS – SYNAPTICS.
Congratulations also to Dr Yvonne Ryan, Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering, UL. Yvonne will receive €434,500 to develop a Metabolic Inventory of Mercury Added Products and Mercury Containing Wastes in the Built Environment (BE-MAP)