Excellence in Research Supervision Award Winner - Professor Hugh J. Byrne
TU Dublin celebrated excellence in Research and Innovation at the inaugural awards ceremony held last November, 2023 recognising the incredible impact of the university’s research and innovation community. Winner of the 'Excellence in Research Supervision,' Award - Professor Hugh J. Byrne discusses the award win and research career below.
Professor Hugh J. Byrne is the lead of Research Hub 2 in TU Dublin, has over 35 years’ experience in research science and is responsible for over €25 million in funded projects, including PRTLI Cycles 1,4 and 5 as well as SFI, EI and EU projects. He has over 20 years of experience in the management and development of research infrastructure, supervised over 45 PhD students to completion and published over 400 peer reviewed journal and conference papers. Speaking about the nomination and award win, Hugh said:
"I am humbled and honoured, first and foremost to be nominated for this award by some of the postgraduate students whom I am currently supervising. Supervising at this level is a learning partnership, and increasingly the transdisciplinary nature of the research required a high level of mutual trust and commitment. To be selected as winner for the inaugural Research Supervision award gives me great pride, particularly given the recognition of the increasing importance of level 10 education nationally and internationally, and as core to the mission of TU Dublin.”
Providing a brief background on his research career to date, Hugh showcased highlights of the significant impact in Research and Innovation in TU Dublin.
- Member of the different incarnations of the TU Dublin Graduate Research and Graduate Programmes Committees since 1999, overseeing strategy, policy development and quality assurance pertaining to Level 9/10 education provision, and acted as Internal Assessor on the Validation Panel for the TU Dublin “Structured PhD Programme” (2012).
- In the early stages (1996-2004), this entailed developing a culture and infrastructure of support for individuals and groups of individuals at School, Faculty, and Institutional level.
- In the short space of time since the 1st TU Dublin PhD graduate in 2000, he played a key role in the TU Dublin achieving the target criterion of 4% research student cohort for the successful designation as Ireland’s first technological university in 2019.
Based on extensive experience of reviewing for the EU MSCA Individual Scholarship and Training Network schemes, he was invited to participate in:
- MSCA Ireland Postdoctoral Fellowships Webinar, Presentation and Panel Member, April (2022)
- “National Grants, MSCA & ERC: Pathways to an Independent Research Career”, Irish Research Council, Irish Universities Association Workshop, Panel Member, April (2023)
Hugh is an Athena Swan TU Dublin Self-Assessment Team Member; 2016-date, specifically representing the Research staff cohort, and alternate institutional representative on the National Athena Swan Committee.
- TU Dublin was the first technological university in Ireland to attain a Bronze Award in 2018, later converted to a Legacy and then full Bronze award for TU Dublin.
TU Dublin engaged in the EU FP6 SSA under Hugh's direction, “Diagnostic applications of synchrotron infrared micro spectroscopy” (DASIM), (2005-2009) in which he was co-ordinator of the Raman Working Group.
- This international engagement led, for example, to involvement in the co-ordination of the biennial flagship SPEC conferences (SPEC 2010, Organising Committee; SPEC 2014, Co-chair; SPEC 2016, 2018, International Advisory Board, SPEC 2022, Co-chair), inclusion as International Members lead in the UK EPSRC Network CLIRSPEC (2013-2017), International advisor to the EPSRC Healthcare Technologies New Challenges NetworkPlus (CLIRPath-AI – 2021-2025), and appointment as one of 5 founding Directors of the International Society for Clinical Spectroscopy in 2015.
- Hugh was also an active member of the EU Cost Action Raman4Clinics Network (2014-2018). Development of clinical applications of vibrational spectroscopy has led to international patents/applications, and is ongoing, in collaboration with the Coombe Women's and Infants University Hospital, and Dublin Dental University Hospital.
The PI award (11/PI/08) by Science Foundation Ireland of “Advancing Vibrational Spectroscopy for Cellular and Sub Cellular Analysis”, (2012-2017) enabled a fundamental and systematic exploration of the subcellular spectroscopic responses of cells to chemotherapeutic agents and nano-toxicants in vitro, and a critical assessment of the reproducibility, sensitivities and specificities of the techniques, as well as current chemometric approaches to data mining and understanding the spectroscopic information which can be derived. This work is currently ongoing through the SFI Frontiers and Frontiers for Partnerships awards “CYTOMECHSPEC” (2021-2025), “ViroSPEC” (2022-2026, in collaboration with UCD), exploring applications to metabolic and viral replication processes in cells, respectively. Speaking about the engagement, Hugh mentioned that:
"TU Dublin has pioneered the use of vibrational spectroscopy for live cell imaging and to probe cellular responses to external stimuli, correlated with cytological assays, in vitro, as well as understanding the principles of bionano interactions in vitro, towards the development of predictive models in a systems biology approach."
The awards will re-open for nomination in May 2024. If you would like to learn more about the TU Dublin Research and Innovation Awards or view the ceremony, please click here.