THREE candidates with Limerick connections have been chosen for a prestigious Fulbright Scholarship to progress their knowledge and research at centres of excellence abroad.
The Department of Foreign Affairs, Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport, and Media, and US Chargé d’Affaires to Ireland, Mike Clausen, announced 37 Fulbright Irish awardees for 2023-2024 at a ceremony in the US Ambassador’s Residence.
Academics, professionals, students, and Irish speakers will attend 17 leading US institutions to research, study, teach, and collaborate with experts in their fields from August 2023 to August 2024, with the three Limerick awardees numbering among them.
Dr Olwyn Mahon is a Senior Research Fellow in the Faculty of Science and Engineering at University of Limerick. Her PhD focused on the developing immunomodulatory implantable scaffolds for enhanced regeneration of bone defects.
Her current research focuses on the development of representative in vitro model systems of metastatic urological cancers.
As a Fulbright Scholar, Olwyn will be hosted at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, and will explore the use of CRISPR genome editing mouse models of bone metastasis and multiomic single cell sequencing approaches to understand the tumor microenvironment in patients with metastatic urological cancers.
The second awardee, Dr Ailbhe Nic Giolla Chomhaill, is a lecturer in Irish in the School of English, Irish, and Communication at the University of Limerick. Her doctoral thesis on folklore and oral traditions of the Joyce Country, counties Galway and was funded by the Irish Research Council.
Her first monograph to date, An Chaora Ghlas agus Scéalta Eile as Seanadh Farracháin, is a study of international folktales collected in Seanadh Farracháin National School, County Galway, in 1937-38 under the auspices of The Schools’ Folklore Collection.
As a Fulbright Irish Scholar based at Indiana University, Bloomington, her research project will analyse Irish and Gaelic language folktales narrated by female storytellers from Ireland and Scotland during the 20th century.
Dr Lukas O’Brien is a core surgical trainee in plastic and reconstructive surgery with the RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences. As a Fulbright awardee, he will attend Yale University to pursue a masters in health policy and management.
A former Ard Scoil Ris pupil, he grew up in Adare and holds an Under-21 All-Ireland medal, playing hurling with Adare and Ardscoil. He recently performed as soloist with Irish Doctors Orchestra in aid of the Limerick Children’s Grief Centre.
