This blog is no longer active. I maintained this blog as part of my role of Research Development Officer with the Faculty of Engineering and Computing, DCU. I have taken up a new role, but you can continue to find information on research in the Faculty, through the main Faculty website [HERE], and through the DCU news pages [HERE].
Thanks for reading!
Raymond Kelly

Wednesday 20 February 2008

DCU Graduate named Handballer of the Year

DCU graduate Dr. Eoin Kennedy has been named as Vodafone GAA Handballer of the year for 2007. This is Eoin's fourth All Star award, having previously been awarded the honour in 2002, 2004 and 2005. The award was presented by the President of the Irish Handball Council Tom Walsh at a reception in Dublin's Westbury Hotel.

This marks yet another year of success for the St. Brigid's Clubman, who collected a Grand Slam of titles, taking the All-Ireland 60x30 Singles and Doubles crowns, in addition to Hardball Singles and Doubles honours. Eoin is only the third player ever to manage this feat.

Eoin's list of achievements is phenomenol. As well as more than a dozen Irish senior handball titles, he has won World, United States and Canadian championships. He has led Ireland against the basque country under compromise rules, and in 2007 was the catalyst to Ireland's victory over the US in the Casey/Lawlor Cup.

Eoin has managed to combine these athletic feats with academic and professional excellence. After graduating with a BEng in Electronic Engineering, Eoin went on to pursue doctoral research in the School of Electronic Engineering at DCU. Under the supervision of Dr. Marissa Condon, he graduated with a PhD in 2005. The lecturing experience and research portfolio which Eoin had built up during his time at DCU helped him to secure a lecturing post in NUI Maynooth, where he has worked since completing his PhD. At the end of this month, Eoin will begin his new role as Power System Analyst within the Generation Analysis group in Eirgrid. This post will involve forecasting and planning for Ireland's future electricity needs.

Tuesday 19 February 2008

Funding Success for Nanomaterials Processing Laboratory

The Nanomaterials Processing Laboratory (NPL) at the School of Electronic Engineering has been awarded close to €1 million research funding in recent months.

The NPL, which draws researchers from the Research Institute for Networks and Communications Engineering (RINCE) and the National Centre for Plasma Science and Technology (NCPST), is led by Prof. Patrick McNally. Prof. McNally was recently awarded an EU Framework Programme (FP7) STREP Grant of €225,509. The project entitled "Investigation of Si wafer damage in manufacturing processes (SIDAM)" runs from 2008 to 2010. Collaborators include CEIT (Spain), University of Freiburg (Germany), ANKA Synchrotron (Germany), Bede Scientific (UK) and the University of Durham (UK).

Prof. McNally also received a Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) Equipment Grant for the acquisition of a Mini Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (SIMS) System in December 2007. In addition, Prof. McNally and his colleague Dr. Stephen Daniels were awarded an Enterprise Ireland (EI) Commercialisation Fund Technology Development Grant for a project entitled "Development of prototype devices for flexible white-light emitters based on copper halide technology". The project runs from December 2007 to November 2010. The value of the project is €390,000.

Importantly, these funding agencies use international experts to review grant proposals, so this success represents a strong endorsement of the NPL's research activities by their fellow researchers across the globe. In addition, funding for the commercialisation of research findings, such as that recently secured by the NPL is an important stepping stone in Ireland's move to a knowledge-based economy.