Ad Astra Fellow
Assistant Professor/Lecturer
School of Biology and Environmental Science, University College Dublin
My research uses metagenomic, metatranscriptomic and metabolomic approaches to explore plant, environmental and human biology.
My plant and environmental science research takes advantage of natural variation to understand fundamental responses and meta'omic interactions related to stress, with applications including: phytoremediation, sustainable agriculture, bioenergy and renewable phytochemistry.
In addition to plant and environmental science, I also consult and collaborate on experimental design and 'omic data interpretation within human clinical microbiome research and within the space sciences as a member of the GeneLab Microbes and Multi-omics/systems biology Analysis Working Groups.
RESEARCH STRATEGY
My research focuses on three major themes bridging fundamental science and application.
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Of particular excitement is the capacity to observe plant, animal, fungal, protist and bacterial gene expression together, allowing a unique opportunity to unpick the functional interactions of colliding microbiomes of complex environments.
To date my research has involved environments involving forestry, the rhizosphere, wastewater, soil, compost, human breast milk and gastrointestinal tract, the international space station, rodent research missions and the Mars500 project.
