Joseph Mooney on trusting your gut and the drive to help create a better future

Joseph Mooney is a postdoctoral researcher on a Marie Curie Global Fellowship at the University of Limerick, working in collaboration with Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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A deep curiosity for ‘the next thing’ is something that was a hallmark of Joseph Mooney’s childhood, and in some ways, not much has changed.

“I’ve always been curious. As a child I was either creating with my Lego or Meccano, getting lost in the fields, up to something with my friends… generally not being able to sit down. I loved photography, I loved sports. It was hard for my parents to ever keep me still! I’m still like that. I always have to be going somewhere, doing something.”

Now, that curiosity has been channelled into a mission to make the world a better place for all….

I’m currently a postdoctoral researcher on a Marie Curie fellowship, working with the University of Limerick in collaboration with Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I'm working on decentralized water purification systems, focusing on how we can make a difference in the world to tackle the ever-increasing water crisis in the face of climate change.

This ambitious path wasn’t always quite so clear. In fact, when Joseph first decided on University of Limerick for his undergraduate studies, the decision was far more informed by the university’s incredible sports facilities than any academic aspirations.

“What really attracted me towards UL was primarily the sports facilities. I was heavily involved in swimming, and I was already training in the university. I was given a sports scholarship in order to pursue swimming over the next four years alongside my degree. Then I also had the benefit of having the excellent engineering facilities here in the university.

“I knew that the directors and the lecturers within the university are very supportive of athletes and ensuring that they can get a great balance between during their studies, conducting research projects and achieving all they can within the sporting world.”

Undergraduate studies are a time of great change and personal development for most. For Dr Mooney, the change he saw in himself over that period was quite remarkable, and something that informed his change of life course and his future mission.

“I think my change was somewhat drastic. I was somehow thinking I was going to be this amazing swimming celebrity and I was never going to stop swimming for the rest of my life.

“But I think the university experience allows you to understand yourself, understand your passions, and allow you to evolve into that career, that really drives you for longevity. And when I came here, I just became more and more engrossed in understanding the world, making more of an impact for others rather than for myself.

“I didn't see as much value in achieving medals. I found a new passion ignited within, one that was centred around making a tangible impact on the world, far beyond the confines of a medal podium.”

It was that switch in mindset, and the support of UL faculty members, that empowered Joseph to take the next big step in his academic journey and opt to pursue a PhD.

“It wasn't until about a year in that I just became far more passionate about pursuing a career in academia. Swimming just started becoming less of a priority. I was feeling more excitement about the results that I was achieving in the university rather than the results I was getting in the pool.

“I really enjoy working with the academics here. If it wasn’t for my advisors Prof. Vanessa Egan and Prof. Jeff Punch I would not be on this incredible journey that could one day have real world tangible impact. Academics in UL are highly collaborative, they're highly supportive. If you have an idea, there's always someone who can put you in touch with someone else. If you're passionate not just about academia, but industrial collaboration and commercialization of technologies, the academics will put you on the right path. I think that's a very strong trait of the university.”

The thought of undertaking a PhD is something that’s understandable daunting to many, but Dr Mooney feels it’s a far more accessible path than people may believe.

“I think anyone can pursue a PhD. I think if you're ambitious about something and you can show that you're committed to that, I think anyone can achieve a very successful Ph.D.

“Let's just say I wasn't especially academically inclined coming into the PhD, and now I'm working with world-renowned researchers, world-renowned groups. The younger me would not believe the things that I'm doing right now.”

The Marie Curie Fellowship is a particularly prestigious award and the application process is highly competitive. True to form, Joseph has quite the story attached to finding out he’d been selected…

“I had a friend in the lab and he had brought me on a trip to Iran. We travelled 5,000 miles from the South of Iran to the top of Iran. And halfway through, we went on a hike on New Year's Day (or Nowruz) there. And after the hike, we were just sitting around chatting, taking it all in. In fact I just spotted my first scorpion.”

“At that location there was no Internet, and I didn't have Internet on my phone. So, I asked my friend if he had anything. He said he had one bar, so I asked him to hotspot. I opened up my phone and I saw an email that started with ‘Congratulations’. I just thought it was spam. I put it down and a second later I just thought ‘wait a minute… my supervisors were cc’d on that!’

“I looked again and read ‘Congratulations, you got the top grade and you’re going to MIT…’. It was crazy! I wanted to call my mother but with such a weak reception I couldn’t get through. So, I sent her a text that said ‘I got MIT!’ – I thought maybe that might send.

“Meanwhile on the other side of the world, my poor mother gets the message and thinks I’ve gotten ‘BIT’. I’m celebrating, and she’s worrying I’m on my way to a hospital! Happily, I eventually I got through to her and she knew all was ok.

“After that I gave up on contacting anyone else. I put the phone down and started playing football with my friend and his family in this remote location in Iran, Kazarun. It’s a really special memory I’ll never forget.”

At MIT, Joseph is taking on global environmental challenges as part of an inter-disciplinary team, but in some ways it’s the grown-up version of the Meccano-obsessed child with a love for the outdoors and the water; building experiments until you find something that works.

“In the morning, it's very much understanding what's happening in the field, if anything is progressing. There’s a lot of reading publications. Then I would go into the lab and start refining, building, designing experiments. And these experiments can be utilized in an array of fields because engineering is so interdisciplinary. After that, research groups tend to come together and present their findings, present their challenges, or even just present topical research papers in the field. We can all leverage each other's interdisciplinary skills in order to progress ideas further.

“In terms of my personal focus, there are these porous materials that we can put into salty water and separate the salt water to create fresh water that’s safe for drinking. I'm also using the exact same material, but impregnating them with salts that can draw moisture in from the air, also known as hygroscopic hydrogels. A sorption-based atmospheric water harvesting device absorbs moisture from the air using this special material. Solar energy then heats the material, releasing the absorbed water as vapor, which is collected as liquid water. With these two technologies we look at how we can create these decentralized modular units that can provide fresh water to anyone in the world. So this has major impact for people in developing countries, and it's something that I'm very passionate about. The world is only going to become more water stressed, so this technology is even more crucial.”

For anyone considering Postgraduate Studies at UL, Joseph leaves us with a few words of wisdom:

“If you're thinking of postgraduate studies, I would say be ambitious. You can do anything you want, and you will be so well supported.

“My biggest thing that has gotten me to where I am is just trusting my gut. If you're following your gut, you're following your passion, I honestly feel you're going to get to the place that you dreamt of.”

If you’re curious about what you might achieve through postgraduate studies, you’ll have all the support you need at University of Limerick. #StayCurious

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