Meet the Team
Supervisory Board
Dermot Lynott
IRN Chair
Maynooth University
Dr. Dermot Lynott has been working on open research practices and open education resources for more than a decade. Dermot was the lead for the NORF-funded TROPIC project, and has long been involved in developing and delivering training in open research practices (e.g., FAIR data, study preregistration, registered reports etc.), including as part of curriculum development for degree and masters programmes. Dermot has been involved in creating open research networks, setting up the Maynooth Open Research network in 2021, and previously at Lancaster University, he founded the Promoting Open Science Practices Group, the first of its kind for a psychology department in the UK. He is also a strong supporter of open access publishing, serving as action editor for the open access journal Collabra, and is the current Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of PsyArxiv, the largest preprint server for research in psychology.
Dounia Lakhzoum
Lead Researcher TROPIC/IRN
Maynooth University
Dr. Dounia Lakhzoum is the Lead Researcher on the NORF-funded TROPIC 1 and TROPIC 2 (IRN) projects. She is the architect of the IRN’s digital infrastructure — designing and building the TROPIC and IRN websites, the open research curriculum, the activity templates and infographics that form the foundation of the network’s national reach.
She has delivered training programmes, workshops, and train-the-trainer events to build capacity in open research practices across Ireland, with content covering FAIR data, study preregistration, registered reports, and raising awareness of questionable research practices. She also mentors researchers and supports curriculum development in open research.
Her work focuses on creating a discipline-agnostic curriculum that promotes transparency, rigour, and reproducibility across all research institutions and research disciplines.
Martina Prendergast
International Funding Manager
University of Limerick/LERO
I am a member of Lero’s Open Science and Open Source Committee which assists researchers with queries that they may have around Open Science and Open Source. In my role I connect our researchers with groups seeking to conduct Open Science and Open Source-relevant proejcts and proposals for projects. I seek opportunities for funding work leading to Open Research and work with groups on concept and proposal development.
Frank Moriarty
Institutional Lead for Open Research
RCSI
Frank is associate professor of pharmacoepidemiology at the School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences at RCSI, and institutional lead for open research. His research focuses on understanding the effects of reducing or stopping medicines (deprescribing) and enhancing methods in research using routinely collected health data. He is interested in enhancing implementation of open research practices in studies using health data.
Darren Dahly
Senior Lecturer
University College Cork
Darren Dahly is a Senior Lecturer in Research Methods in the University College Cork (UCC) School of Public Health, and the Principal Statistician of the Clinical Research Facility at UCC (2015-). In these roles, he contributes to a broad portfolio of medical and health research as an epidemiologist and applied medical statistician. He also teaches postgraduates about clinical trial design, statistics and modelling, causal inference and appraisal of evidence in medical and health research. Since 2021, Darren has also held a part-time secondment with the Health Protection Surveillance Centre, contributing to their infectious disease modelling efforts, training their staff in statistics and statistical modelling and advising on the development of a permanent biostatistics and modelling unit. He was previously a lecturer in Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of Leeds (2008-2013) and has a PhD in Nutritional Epidemiology (University of North Carolina School of Public Health) and an MHS in International Health (Johns Hopkins School of Public Health).
Marek McGann
Senior Lecturer
University of Limerick/MIC
Marek’s work is primarily theoretical, in the domain of embodied, ecological, and enactive approaches to mind and cognition. He also works in the area of scientific practice in psychology, which is largely what brought him to engage with issues of open science. In addition, he spends quite a bit of time exploring effective ways of supporting evidence-informed practice in education, and inter-professional dialogue between researchers and practising educational professionals.
Florian Scheibein
Research Support
SETU
Florian Scheibein is a PhD Candidate who works in Research Support in the Faculty of Health Sciences, South East Technological University (SETU). He represents SETU at the South East Drug and Alcohol Task Force where there is a strong emphasis on ensuring that lived/living experience is central to all of its work. He is a Senior Editor with Harm Reduction Journal where he works, with his colleagues, to ensure that youth-focussed research is conducted with and by young people who use (d) drugs. He has previously helped organise a number of open science training workshops and events including platform specific workshops (Zenodo, Open Science Framework) and an event on academic freedom.
Local Leads
Karen Matvienko-Sikar
Senior Lecturer
University College Cork
Dr Matvienko-Sikar is a health psychologist with interests and expertise in maternal and infant perinatal health and well-being. She has led and contributed to development of open research training courses for undergraduate and postgraduate students, and for educators. She is a catalyst for theBerkeley Initiative for Transparency in the Social Sciences and a member of the Steering Committee for the Framework for Open and Reproducible Research Training.
Ciara Egan
Lecturer
University of Galway
Dr Ciara Egan is a lecturer in Clinical Neuroscience within the School of Psychology. Prior to her appointment she completed her PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience at Bangor University. Her research focuses on the cognitive neuroscience of language, neurodiversity, and open science, predominantly using EEG, event-related potentials, and pupil dilation. She is also active in science outreach (as Gaeilge agus as Béarla).
Kevin Mitchell
Associate Professor
Trinity College Dubln
I work at the intersections of genetics, neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy. I’m broadly interested in the relations betweens genes, brains, and minds. More specifically, my current research includes psychiatric genetics, visual psychophysics, and agency in natural and artificial systems.
Joe Warne
Lecturer / Researcher
Technological University Dublin
Director of the Sports Science Replication Centre and Meta-Student. Advocate for reproducible and open science with a research focus on meta-science.
Katie Gilligan-Lee
Lecturer/Assistant Professor (Ad Astra Fellow) School of Psychology
University College Dublin
Katie is an Assistant Professor (Ad Astra Fellow) at the School of Psychology, UCD. Katie completed an undergraduate BA in Neuroscience at Trinity College Dublin followed by a MPhil in Psychology and Education at the University of Cambridge. She obtained her PhD in Developmental Psychology from University College London (UCL) on the developmental relations between spatial and mathematical skills in middle childhood. Katie worked as an Assistant Professor at the University of Surrey from October 2018 to 2022. She joined UCD as an Assistant Professor (and Ad Astra Fellow) in January 2023.
Katie’s research focuses on how an understanding of cognitive development can be used to inform and improve education and she has a particular interest in improving children’s Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) outcomes. This includes several intervention-based projects aimed at improving spatial reasoning through embodied action and Lego play. Katie’s research and related impact activities have been funded by the Baily Thomas Charitable Fund, the British Academy, the Education Endowment Foundation, the Centre for Educational Neuroscience, the Williams Syndrome Foundation, and the ESRC Impact Acceleration Account .
Lai Ma
Professor
University College Dublin
Lai is the Principal Investigator of the project, “Sustainable and Collaborative Research Information for Bibliodiverse Ecosystems: A Transnational Study” (SCRiBe) funded by the ERC Consolidator Grant (2025-2030). The project explores and examines the conceptualisation of “open”, tracing the documentation movement and the open access movement that culminated in open research infrastructure of varying scale and scope in three geographical regions. More information at www.scribeproject.eu
Ciarán Ó Catháin
Assistant Professor/Dir. or of PhD Program in Sport Science and Nutrition
Maynooth Unversity
Biomechanist and Statistician interested in the application of Bayesian Statistics in Sport and Exercise Science, as well as the development of statistical literacy/research competency.
James Green
Professor
University of Limerick
School of Allied Health and Health Research Institute
Quentin Le Cornu
Research Statistician
School of Public Health, Physiotherapy & Sports Science, University College Dublin
Quentin Le Cornu is a part-time PhD candidate working on a research project focused on developing evidence-based data management and sharing plans for randomised controlled trials and meta-analyses in biomedical research. Since 2025, Quentin has co-organised the ReproducibiliTea journal club at University College Dublin and serves on the steering committee of the global organisation. His main research interests include open science, research reproducibility, and clinical trial methodology.
Jennifer Murphy
Assistant Lecturer
ATU Galway
Jenny Murphy is passionate about metascience, with a particular focus on replication research and improving the quality, rigor, and credibility of sports science research. She is keen to help identify and reduce common research problems within the field and is also interested in how scientific knowledge is communicated and translated to the public.
Pádraig Mac Aodhgáin
Data Steward
University College Cork
Pádraig Mac Aodhgáin, PhD, is a data steward based at the Boole Library in UCC. Research interests include exploring ways to manage humanities data. Background in digital humanities, ethnomusicology, archival and research metadata, and digital visualisation.
Robin Healy
Lecturer
Technological University of the Shannon
Faculty of Science and Health (Midlands), Department of Sport and Health Science
Simon Dunne
Associate Professor of Psychology
Dublin City University
As a researcher primarily in the field of psycho-oncology, my research interests focus on improving quality of life and psychosocial outcomes for individuals navigating health challenges and constraints. My expertise involves utilizing advanced quantitative and qualitative methodologies to explore how patient networks, clinical interventions, and systemic healthcare infrastructures can be optimized for greater inclusivity. I am actively committed to open research practices, specifically through advocating for transparent data sharing, establishing standardized operating procedures for multicenter collaboration, and driving community-engaged dissemination to make psychosocial findings accessible to all stakeholders.
Seán Lacey
Research Integrity & Compliance Officer
Munster Technological University
Seán Lacey, BSc, PhD, MBA, PFHEA is the Research Integrity & Compliance Officer at Munster Technological University. Prior to this role, Seán was a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Mathematics. Research interests include leadership in research ethics, research integrity and open science.
Marie O'Neill Maher
Professional Research Systems Officer
IADT
Marie O’Neill Maher’s interests in open research centre on open access scholarly publishing and on supporting faculty and students in their research. She contributes to scholarly communication through her editorial work with the All-Ireland Journal of Higher Education, a diamond open access journal. In her role managing the PURE research information system at IADT, she actively supports the dissemination of open access content, further strengthening the visibility and impact of institutional research.
Tamara Malone
Online Virtual Library Support
National College of Ireland
I am interested in facilitating open and FAIR research at NCI via effective service provision and the development of NCI’s Institutional Repository; this currently includes exploring the minting of DOIs and institution-wide ORCID adoption. My own research interests centre around accessibility and inclusivity in libraries.
Raymond Bond
Professor of Human Computer Systems
Ulster University
Raymond has research interests within human-computer systems which has mainly included applications of biomedical and healthcare informatics (digital health). Raymond’s work has involved the application of human-computer interaction and data science/machine learning techniques to healthcare research. His work has involved health data analytics as well as the modelling, processing and visualisation of medical data to enhance clinical decision-making, including the creation of interactive decision support systems. He also has research interests in computerised simulation-based training in healthcare, usability engineering/UX data analysis methods to improve medical devices, eye-gaze analytics in clinical decision making, and is also involved in designing and evaluating digital health and wellbeing interventions. Raymond has over 350 research outputs and has chaired/co-chaired a number of conferences: 1) 32nd International BCS Human Computer Interaction conference, 2) the 45th/ 46th Annual Conference of the International Society for Computerised Electrocardiology, and 3) the 31st Annual European Conference of Cognitive Ergonomics).
Francisca Silva
Research Librarian
Dublin Business School
Editorial Assistant for the DBS Applied Research and Theory Journal, Secretary of the Applied Research and Practice Committee and member of the organising committee for the Practical Applied Research Conference. Interests include research data management and library publishing.
Ally D'Astolfo
Research Officer
National College of Art and Design
University College Dublin
Emma Boughton
Library and Information Services Officer
Teagasc Ashtown Food Research Centre