Eileen obtained her PhD in Nutritional Sciences from UCC under the supervision of Professor Nora O’Brien. She spent a year here as a postdoctoral scientist and in 2008, after moving to Australia, took up a post at the Centre for Drug Candidate Optimization (CDCO) based within Monash University. Here she spent several years working as a research officer with a focus on in vitro drug metabolism and on mass spectrometry (MS) based identification and structural elucidation of drug metabolites. In December 2014, she accepted a postdoctoral position with Professor Gavin Reid (Professor of Bioanalytical Chemistry) at the Bio21 Institute of Molecular Sciences & Biotechnology, University of Melbourne. Here her research was primarily focused on MS based lipid analysis (lipidomics), specifically on the development of novel MS based strategies for analysis of complex lipids and bioactive lipid mediators as well as the application of these methods toward understanding the role of lipids in the onset and progression of disease. In 2018,  Eileen was awarded an APEX fellowship at APC Microbiome Ireland and thereafter a prestigious Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship (IF) in February 2020. She joined the School of Food and Nutritional Sciences, as lectrurer and PI in Nutrition, in November 2023. 

Eileen’s research interests include nutritional biochemistry, bioactives (particularly bioactive lipids - dietary, mammalian, bacterial), biomarker discovery through lipidomics, metabolic pathways, food contaminants & toxicology

Active:

EPA Research Grant 2024: Lead PI: €639,700 on ‘DIetary exposSure and Risk to hEalth of Per- and poly-fluroAlkyl substances: an IRish perspective (DISREPAIR)’. March 2025 to February 2029.

SFI-IRC Pathways Programme Grant: 2023: Lead PI: €592,218 on ‘The role of Bacterial Lipids in the micrObe-hOst Dialogue (BLOOD)’. September 2024 to August 2028.

Finished:

H2020- Marie Skłodowska-Curie (MSCA) Individual Fellowships -2019: Lead:  €196,590 on ‘The role of microbial Oxylipins in the MIcrobe-hosT dialogue (OMIT)’

H2020- MSCA-APC cofund (APEX)-2018: Lead:  €190,000 on ‘Unravelling the metabolic aetiology of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) via lipidome, metabolome and microbiome multivariate analyses (IBD-ome)’

James Murphy (Lead Supervisor)

Emmet Conroy (Lead Supervisor)

Maeve Corkery (Lead Supervisor)

Leia Joanne Wilmot (Co-supervisor)

NT3002: Food Toxicology, module co-ordinator

NT4002: Advanced Nutrient Metabolism