Principal Investigator:Professor Ruairí Brugha Head of Department of Epidemiology and Public Health Medicine, RSCI Ruairí qualified as a doctor at UCD in 1980 and spent six years in Africa in the 1980's-1990's as a clinician, public health specialist and researcher. He completed his public health medicine training in the UK and joined the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 1996 as a lecturer and then senior lecturer. He was co-editor of Health Policy and Planning from 1999 and Head of the Health Policy Unit from 2003. In 2005, he joined the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland as the first full time Head of the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health Medicine. He conducts health policy and health systems research, mainly in Africa and Ireland. See www.ghinet.org for outputs from a multi-country network researching the effects of global initiatives on recipient country health systems, which he co-coordinates, and click here for journal publications.
Professor Ronan Conroy
Ronán Conroy is the Associate Professor of Biostatistics. He was educated in Trinity College Dublin and University College Dublin, and obtained his Higher Doctorate from the National University of Ireland. He is the module co-ordinator for the Evidence Based Health module, which combines research methods, critical appraisal and research ethics. He teaches hands-on statistics courses on the PhD programmes. In addition, he provides statistical advice and analysis to College researchers. His research interests are broad, with publications in the areas of health psychology, psychiatry, cardiovascular disease and low-technology approaches to infectious disease prevention in developing countries. He was responsible for the development of the SCORE risk chart, a simple chart used to estimate risk of cardiovascular disease which is part of the European Task force Guidelines on Cardiovascular Prevention. He also carried out the first public health trials of solar disinfection of drinking water. Together with his wife, Jeannette Golden, he has published research on mental health of the elderly in Ireland.
Patrick Dicker
Patrick Dicker is a lecturer and statistician in the departments of epidemiology and public health medicine and obstetrics and gynaecology (Rotunda) in the RCSI. Patrick obtained his primary degree in pure mathematics and statistics from University College Dublin in 1992, where he subsequently obtained his master's degree in statistics. He also has a master's degree in bioinformatics from Dublin City University. Prior to working in the RCSI, Patrick spent 10 years working as a consultant biostatistician in the pharmaceutical industry in Ireland, France and Switzerland, where he obtained extensive experience in clinical trials. His research interests cover broad areas, from molecular and cellular therapeutics to public health epidemiology and health systems research. His current collaborations include: intra-uterine growth restriction and neonatal outcomes, schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder proteomics, skin cancer in renal transplantation, platelet aggregometry and cardiovascular disease, psychiatric profiling of the 22q11.2 deletion syndrome, global HIV/AIDS initiatives and health systems in Africa. He is currently on the research board of the Irish Epilepsy Association.
Sophie Crowe
Sophie Crowe is research assistant on the HRB-funded, Doctor Emigration study at the RCSI. Sophie completed a BA in History (TCD) in 2009, a MA in International Security and Conflict Studies (DCU) in 2010 and a MSc. in Applied Social Research (TCD) in 2013. Prior to working at the RCSI, Sophie worked at Coventry University on studies of work experiences of social workers in England and young people’s understanding of consent and sexual agency.
Nick Clarke
Nick Clarke is a post-doctoral researcher and co-ordinates the HRB funded MedTrack study. MedTrack is Ireland’s first medical graduate career tracking study and aims to report, analyse and track the specialty choices, career intentions and early career decisions made by Irish medical graduates, including decisions to work full or part-time, leave medicine, or emigrate. The study will also include estimates of the consequences to the Irish exchequer of medical graduate emigration. Nick obtained his primary degree in Anthropology (DBS) and obtained an MSc in Applied Social Research from Trinity College Dublin in 2002. Previously Nick worked with the National Cancer Registry where he received an Irish Cancer Society scholarship to complete his PhD in Epidemiology and Public Health (UCC) on factors associated with participation in colorectal cancer screening in Ireland. Prior to this Nick was a Men’s Health researcher with the Centre for Men’s Health and co- ordinated projects on the excess burden of cancer in men and best practice in suicide prevention in young men.
