The annual Wrixon Bursaries for postgraduate students at Tyndall were recently announced, with five students receiving a Research Excellence Bursary, and two students winning the Wrixon Travel Bursary.
The bursaries support international study visits and the promotion and recognition of research excellence among Tyndall’s postgraduates.
Professor William Scanlon, Tyndall CEO, said: “The annual Wrixon Bursaries highlight Tyndall’s research excellence, and I am pleased to see this year’s outstanding recipients recognised for their transformative contributions. Congratulations to all the recipients, we are proud to support your research journey.”
The 2024 recipients of the Research Excellence Wrixon Bursaries
Patricia O’Sullivan: Physical Fatigue Forecasting for the Smart Factory Worker. O'Sullivan’s research aims to prevent work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs) among smart factory workers by developing a real-time wearable sensor system.
This system, comprising a mobile app and sensors, monitors user movements and task loads to predict physical fatigue using biomechanical modelling and machine learning.
It offers personalised, real-time, and adaptable predictions, advancing the field significantly. The technology could reduce worker absences, disabilities, and economic costs while enhancing wellbeing, productivity, and quality. Additionally, it has potential applications in sports performance and rehabilitation.
Ana Claudia Ferreira: Development of a smart bolus system for multi parameter monitoring of the bovine wellbeing. The global demand for animal-derived products requires innovative systems for effective livestock monitoring to enhance dairy industry efficiency, ensure animal wellbeing, and reduce costs.
Ferreira’s PhD focuses on the design, fabrication, integration and validation of a fast portable multi-parametric electrochemical platform for bovine health monitoring, called PULSE. Her work also demonstrated the possibility to deploy sensors as pH, temperature, nitrate, nitrite, potassium and sodium in the rumen for health monitoring.
Steven Cheng: RF Co-design and Complex-load Synthesis Techniques for Multi-functional & Tunable LNAs. Wireless communication is essential for modern society, with advancing technologies transitioning from 5G to 5G+ and 6G to meet growing demands for higher data rates, lower latency, and greater efficiency. However, traditional RF hardware design becomes bulky as the number of components increases to support more frequency bands, standards, and applications.
This research focuses on developing innovative integration methods for tunable co-designed passive/active RF front-end components. These solutions significantly reduce the size of RF transceivers and enhance signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), addressing the challenges of future wireless communication systems.
Nadeem Rather: AI-enabled chipless RFID sensing system for reliable IoT applications. Rather’s research focuses on sustainable IoT technologies through the development of advanced chipless RFID (CRFID) systems. It introduces a novel design for polarization-insensitive sensing tags using concentric rings, increasing data encoding capacity by 88.2%.
The innermost ring is used for capacitive sensing with RCS nulls for precise data encoding, enhanced by an additional outermost ring. AI integration on the reader side, utilising machine learning and deep learning models like 1D-CNN and Bi-LSTM, ensures robust detection under varying environmental conditions. These innovations create a reliable, AI-enabled CRFID sensing system for real-world IoT applications.
Andrea Bocchino: A Multifunctional Platform for the Rapid Prototyping of Polymeric Microneedle-based Devices and Systems. Bocchino’s project involves developing a platform for the rapid prototyping of polymeric microneedle-based devices, utilising a replica moulding process that enables full customisation and the integration of diverse properties within a single device.
This scalable and replicable approach facilitated significant advancements in drug delivery, biomarker detection, and biopotential monitoring. Collaborative efforts with various enterprises and renowned institutions led to the publication of multiple papers in top-tier journals, the generation of licensable intellectual property, and several accolades.
Notable achievements include patent licensing to West Pharmaceutical Services, finalist recognition at the EARTO ‘Impact Expected’ Awards in Brussels, the Collaboration Achievement award at the Irish Laboratory Awards (2018), and the License of the Year Award at the UCC Research and Innovation Awards (2023).
Wrixon Travel Bursary Winners 2024
Hasti Yavari: 2-photon fluorescence lifetime imaging (2p-FLIM) for uveal melanoma monitoring and diagnosis. Yavari’s project investigates the potential of two-photon fluorescence lifetime imaging (2p-FLIM) as a non-invasive diagnostic tool for uveal melanoma, an aggressive eye cancer with limited diagnostic options and poor prognosis in metastatic cases.
The research focuses on evaluating the sensitivity and specificity of 2p-FLIM to enable early, accurate detection and guide treatment decisions. Conducted at the University Health Network (UHN) in Toronto, this work is part of a larger initiative to develop a novel two-photon photodynamic therapy (2p-PDT) instrument for treating uveal melanoma.
Owen Moynihan: Tunable laser integrated circuits with University of British Columbia. Moynihan’s project includes combining the expertise between the Tyndall National Institute and the University of British Columbia. We have developed and published high performing photonic active devices integrated to silicon photonics platforms. British Columbia are pioneers of silicon photonics technology.
He plans to work with them to research and produce a circuit which combines our integrated gain sources with high performing silicon devices to produce a multi-wavelength source for optical communications applications. This work will show what these devices are capable of in circuit systems and bringing this technology closer to real-world applications.