I graduated in 2007 from University College Dublin (UCD) with a degree in medicine. Following initial training in general medicine, I completed a PhD studying spatial structure of gut microbiota in ulcerative colitis under the supervision of Professor Ronan O’Connell at UCD and St. Vincent’s University Hospital, Dublin.

On completion of specialist training in gastroenterology, I undertook a Clinical/Research Fellowship at Cork University Hospital and APC Microbiome Ireland with Professor Fergus Shanahan. Subsequently, I was awarded a PRESTIGE/Marie-Curie postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratory of Professor Harry Sokol in Paris to study the gut microbiome in IBD and donor-recipient matching in FMT using bioinformatic methods.

I am currently Professor in Clinical Anatomy in the Department of Anatomy & Neuroscience, a Group Leader at APC Microbiome Ireland and I maintain a clinical role in the Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at Cork University Hospital. 

My laboratory is funded by Research Ireland, studying the role of bile acid dysmetabolism in disease severity in Inflammatory Bowel Disease. My research also focuses on the role of the gut microbiome in disorders of gut-brain interaction, environmental factors influencing gut microbiota colonisation in infancy and bioinformatic methods to integrate clinical, metabolomic and metagenomic data.