A UNIVERSITY of Limerick (UL) postdoctoral researcher and her daughter were both recently conferred with PhD awards from the University of Galway.
Mother and daughter duo Róisín and Aoife Hill were both conferred with Doctor of Philosophy research degrees from the University of Galway at their recent conferring ceremony.
Since completing her degree Róisín has been awarded a prestigious two-year Irish Research Council (IRC) Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellowship, which she is currently undertaking in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Limerick under the mentorship of Professor Natalia Kopteva.
Her daughter Aoife has since taken up a full-time position as an Assistant Lecturer in Computing at Atlantic Technological University Donegal’s Letterkenny campus.
Róisín and Aoife hail from Ballyhaunis, County Mayo, and share a talent and a love for mathematics. In 2017, the pair decided to embark on IRC-funded PhDs at the University of Galway together.
Róisín, who is a former chartered accountant, has loved maths since she was four and she was inspired to go to university to study mathematics by her daughter Aoife.
When Aoife went to university to study applied maths and after hearing her describe her curriculum and assignments, Róisín decided to follow in her daughter’s footsteps.
Róisín was conferred with her PhD for a project she undertook in the School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences that introduced improved numerical analysis techniques for predicting how fluids flow, while Aoife completed a project in the Department of Biomedical Engineering that investigated how mathematical models can be used to predict the behaviour of special plastics that gradually break down in the human body.
Commenting on Róisín and Aoife’s conferral with IRC-funded PhDs,
Director of the Irish Research Council, Dr Louise Callinan, said: “I would like to congratulate Róisín and Aoife Hill on their recent conferral with PhDs from the University of Galway, funded under the IRC’s Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship Programme.”
“The IRC is proud to fund and foster excellent academic research talent in Ireland, and Róisín and Aoife epitomise the transformative impact of the Government of Ireland Postgraduate awards on the individuals who receive them, but also on society and on the economy through the insights and applications of the
research which the awards support,” she concluded.
