MHLS nominees

Research award

Gerard Walls

(Patrick G. Johnston Centre for Cancer Research)

"Gerard continues to progress along an exceptional research trajectory. His work has received multiple awards including a prestigious Fulbright Award and a Cancer Research UK bursary that have allowed him to develop international collaborations. He has led a global survey of cardiotoxicity practices and designed a patient questionnaire for a European advocacy group. He is part of a European Cardio-Oncology guidelines group and developed a formal interdisciplinary Cardio-Oncology Scientific Group in QUB based his experiences at Washington University during his Fulbright visiting fellowship.

Gerard recently submitted his first Project Grant application supported by this group. Gerard continues to grow his national and international profile by regularly publishing in high-impact journals and presenting at national conferences. He recently received support for an internationally-funded liquid biopsy study in lung cancer radiotherapy, and he is one of 3 co-leads for a UK translational platform trial in lung cancer. He was recently invited to present results from a phase 3 trial at a European conference which was published in the highest impact factor radiotherapy journal which also won First Prize for its poster presentation at a national UK meeting."

Support award

Kevin Edgar

(Wellcome-Wolfson Institute For Experimental Medicine) - Nominated by 3 individuals

"We are nominating Dr Kevin Edgar for the Support category award because he has gone quite above and beyond in his support for our team; it is about time Kevin has been recognised for his extraordinary efforts. Kevin often stays late, sometimes missing out on precious time with his daughter. Students tend to gravitate towards Kevin as he is knowledgeable and approachable. Kevin is juggling multiple animal studies at once, often for groups he doesn’t work for because of his genuine concern for animal welfare. Kevin wrote our animal license and manages the animal research budgets. When two group members were pregnant; Kevin readily carried out protocols for them without complaint, sometimes without even being asked.

Kevin is our fire warden and wrote our core health and safety folder, he also authored some of the SOPs and RAs used by floor management. Kevin is quite the “handy man”, often asked to help with troubleshooting equipment. Kevin upskills to meet the needs of the group, he recently learned how to perform an extremely technically difficult animal surgery. Kevin has an impressive memory and excellent mental math abilities, useful for rhyming off recipes at hand and remembering everyone’s birthday!"

Citizenship and Outreach award

Laura Cushley

(Centre for Public Health)

"Dr Laura Cushley completed her PhD at QUB and subsequently joined Professor Peto’s team. Dr Cushley has an impressive interdisciplinary background using her Environmental/Planning experience to deliver life-changing research for visually impaired people. She has established important relationships with charities, such as AngelEyes/EmpathEyes, to translate her research to the community she serves. She is skilled in disseminating her research to address the challenges of the visually impaired community and incorporates their views in her study design to directly meet their needs.

Laura has recently led a project that showcases her superb ability to translate her research and has ensured that diabetic eye screening is an intrinsic part of clinical treatment in Northern Ireland regional dialysis clinics to reduce blindness in this patient-group. She strives to establish understanding sight loss to personalise the treatment of this community that has such vital needs when navigating the real world. Dr Cushley has co-authored publications with internationally renowned academics and her work has been published in Kidney 360, British Journal of Visual Impairment, Eye and Ophthalmology Retina. Laura is an integral member of the Belfast Ophthalmic Reading Centre and has proved an asset to the team showing motivation and commitment in her work."

Citizenship and Outreach award

Niamh O'Kane

(Centre for Public Health) - Nominated by 2 individuals

"Niamh has consistently demonstrated citizenship and outreach in her postdoctoral research career. In the last year, Niamh has organised events and activities which have engaged specialist and non-specialist audiences around the topics of health and the environment, healthy ageing, and nutrition. She has organised events such as webinars, festival events, and project celebration events, presented at national conferences and meetings of teachers, translated research findings into non-specialist summary reports, wrote for non-academic periodicals and helped develop videos, podcasts and children’s books. She has chaired committees and sat on panels around health and the environment and worked closely with practitioners and policymakers to represent public health research within the environment and climate change conversation. Niamh is a social media editor across six Nutrition Society journals, sitting on the publications committee alongside journal editors. This year she was part of the British Science Association’s Community Buddies programme, which connects researchers with community leaders to encourage community-led research, and was successful in applying for a grant to continue to develop and deliver research activities with young people in the community. She also delivered teaching through the WHO Collaborating Centre, and was awarded Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, after completing her PGCHET."

"Dr Niamh O’Kane has excelled in her role in impact and science communication lead on the ESRC-funded SPACE (Supportive environments for physical and social activity, healthy ageing and cognitive health) project. In particular, Niamh has a talent for science communication to non-specialist audiences as evidenced by her series of outputs such as podcasts, webinars, policy workshops, reports for example (https://www.qub.ac.uk/sites/space/). Niamh has also been instrumental in acquiring further funding to support this work through successful applications to the ESRC Festival of Science, Northern Ireland Science Festival, ESRC IAA and EPSRC IAA. Niamh has also developed important impact networks through co-hosting the SPACE policy workshop series in September 2023 which involved three workshops with over 60 stakeholders from policy, practice and the community. Niamh further led the writing and dissemination of the report from these workshops which was recently presented at a webinar (https://www.qub.ac.uk/sites/space/Resources/#space-policy-workshop-report-2048885-4) and at the All Departments of Government meeting, May 2024. Niamh is a very important member of the team, working with other researchers and partners to develop and support impact and dissemination activities. She continues to be innovative, developing new ideas for science communication and building her skills in this area."

Research award

Carolyn Blair (School of Nursing and Midwifery)

Claire Cleland (Centre for Public Health)

Claire Hill (Centre for Public Health)

Gareth Thompson (School of Nursing and Midwifery)

Gerard Walls (Patrick G. Johnston Centre for Cancer Research)

Katie Curran (Centre for Public Health)

Lauren McVicker (Centre for Public Health)

Natasha Logan (School of Biological Sciences)

Orla Dunne (Wellcome-Wolfson Institute For Experimental Medicine) - Nominated by 3 individuals

Qonita Kurnia Anjani (School of Pharmacy

Sudhir Malla (Patrick G. Johnston Centre for Cancer Research)

Thomas Thompson (School of Pharmacy) - Nominated by 3 individuals

Support award

Ahmed Elkashif (School of Pharmacy)

Christopher McFarland (School of Biological Sciences) - Nominated by 9 individuals

Clare Cleland (Centre for Public Health)

Dunla Gallagher (Centre for Public Health)

Gareth Thompson (School of Nursing and Midwifery)

Jane Burns (School of Pharmacy)

Karis Little (Wellcome-Wolfson Institute For Experimental Medicine)

Karla O'Neill (Wellcome-Wolfson Institute For Experimental Medicine) - Nominated by 3 individuals

Kevin Edgar (Wellcome-Wolfson Institute For Experimental Medicine) - Nominated by 3 individuals

Lajos Csincski (Centre for Public Health)

Leanne Bradley (Patrick G. Johnston Centre for Cancer Research) - Nominated by 2 individuals

Mohammad Arefian (School of Biological Sciences) - Nominated by 10 individuals

Niamh McKerr (Patrick G. Johnston Centre for Cancer Research)

Omololu Fagunwa (School of Biological Sciences) - Nominated by 3 individuals

Thomas Thompson (School of Pharmacy) - Nominated by 9 individuals

Citizenship and Outreach award

Laura Cushley (Centre for Public Health)

Niamh O'Kane (Centre for Public Health) - Nominated by 2 individuals

Orla Dunne (Wellcome-Wolfson Institute For Experimental Medicine)

Parisa Naeli (Patrick G. Johnston Centre for Cancer Research)

Tayler Truhan (School of Nursing and Midwifery)

Thomas Thompson (School of Pharmacy)