Autism Research Team
Prof. Louise Gallagher (MB MRCPsych PhD) is Chair in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Trinity College Dublin and a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist in the HSE/ National Children’s Hospital, Tallaght. She completed her medical training in University College Dublin in 1994 and trained in Psychiatry in the Dublin University Training Scheme at St. Patrick’s and St. James’s Hospital. Following the award of a Wellcome Trust Mental Health Training Fellowship, she completed her PhD on autism genetics in the Department of Psychiatry, Trinity College and subsequently completed Higher Specialist Training in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. During the course of her PhD she established a research group in Autism Genetics and this group is actively involved in the investigation of genetic vulnerability factors contributing to autism. The group is part of a large international collaboration of autism researchers, the Autism Genome Project (AGP) and Prof. Gallagher is one of the Senior Investigators of this research program. She is the principal investigator of The Autism Simplex Collection (TASC), which is an international collaborative effort to establish a repository of autism trios in association with Autism Speaks, AGRE and the NIMH (see link). Prof. Gallagher has a busy clinical practice involving an autism spectrum disorders pre-school assessment service in the National Children’s Hospital and a community based Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service in Clondalkin. Louise's contact email is lgallagh@tcd.ie (Requests for ADOS training should be emailed to ADOS.training@tcd.ie.)
Dr. Richard Anney is currently Assistant Professor in Neurodevelopmental Molecular Genetics. After graduating with a B.Med.Sc (Hons) from the University of Birmingham (United Kingdom) he completed his doctoral training Psychiatric Genetics in the Department of Psychological Medicine at the University of Wales College of Medicine (Cardiff, United Kingdom; supervisor: Dr Paul Buckland). In 2001 he joined the Gene Discovery Group at the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute (Australia; Mentors Dr Sue Forrest & Professor Robert Williamson). At the MCRI, his research focused on exploring the genetic underpinnings of mental illness and addiction in adolescents. Richard return to Europe in 2005, where he joined the Department of Psychiatry as a Research Fellow on the International Multicentre ADHD Genetics (IMAGE) Project. The IMAGE Consortium published their first Genome-Wide Association Study (GWAS) of ADHD in 2008 and has continued to advance ADHD genetics through its contribution to the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC) ADHD subgroup. In 2009, Richard joined the Autism Genetics Research team as part of the HRB-funded Autism Genome Project (AGP). The AGP efforts have included extensive exploration of the genetic underpinning of Autism Spectrum Disorders. As an active member of the AGP and the PGC:Autism, Dr. Anney's research has used GWAS and post-GWAS approaches as well as CNV and more recently Next-Generation-Sequencing strategies. Richard's contact email is anneyr@tcd.ie , TCD Portal
Dr. Nadia Bolshakova received M.Sc. degree from St.-Petersburg State Technical University, Russia in 1996 and Ph.D. degree from Department of Computational Mathematics, North-West State Technical University, St.-Petersburg, Russia in 2000. She took part in research projects at the Institute of Cytology of Russian Academy of Sciences and Trinity College Dublin where she was researching in the areas at the intersection of computer science and life sciences, such as bioinformatics and intelligent systems. Nadia has published number of articles in journals, conference proceedings and books related to bioinformatics, biomodelling and cell biology and has been a referee for several scientific journals. She joined Neuropsychiatric Genetics Research Group at Trinity College Dublin in 2007 as a Research Project Manager of the Autism Simplex Collection (TASC) and the Irish part of Autism Genome Project (AGP). Nadia's contact email is bolshakn@tcd.ie
Jacqueline Fitzgerald graduated from Trinity College Dublin with an honours degree in Neuroscience and subsequently undertook a degree in Psychology. Jacqueline is a PhD candidate funded by the National Children’s Research Centre (NCRC) and is based in the Trinity Institute of Neuroscience. The focus of her neuroimaging study is structural and functional brain differences including atypical connectivity in individuals with high functioning Autism. Jacqueline’s email address is fitzgeje@tcd.ie
Dr. Eleisa Heron graduated with a B.A.(Hons) and M.Sc. in mathematics from Trinity College Dublin before undertaking doctoral training in the Deptment of Statistics, TCD. Eleisa obtained a Ph.D. in the area of Bayesian statistics with a specific application to the modelling of reliability in hip replacement bone cement. On completing her Ph.D., Eleisa joined Warwick University, UK, as a research fellow, jointly based in the Deptment of Statistics and Warwick Systems Biology Centre. Here, Eleisa's research involved the use of Bayesian statistical techniques to model and estimate biologically meaningful parameters of gene regulatory networks. Eleisa took up the post of biostatistical genetics lecturer in the neuropsychiatric genetics research group in July 2008. Eleisa's contact email is eaheron@tcd.ie
Dr. Alison Merikangas graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a BS in Psychology, and was subsequently awarded a post-baccalaureate Intramural Research Training Award from the National Institute of Mental Health, where she worked in the Section on Development and Affective Neuroscience. She then attended the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services and, after completing her thesis research at the National Center for Health Statistics, was awarded her MPH in Epidemiology in May 2008. Alison recently completed her PhD in the Department of Psychiatry TCD, investigating the role of Copy Number Variation (CNVs) in autism and schizophrenia. Alison’s contact email is merikana@tcd.ie
Dr. Jane McGrath graduated from medical school in Trinity College Dublin in 2002 and became a member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in 2006. Jane worked on the Autism Genome Project for a year as a research registrar collecting clinical information and blood samples from participating family members. Over the past four years Jane has been working on a neuroimaging project in children with high functioning autism, which has been funded by Molecular Medicine Ireland. This study has been carried out using the MRI scanner in Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience. The project focuses on investigating brain structure, function and connectivity in autism spectrum conditions. Jane's contact email is jane.mcgrath@tcd.ie
Sonja Delmonte graduated from University College Dublin (UCD) with an honours degree in Psychology. For her doctoral thesis in the Department of Psychiatry, TCD, she examined the neural basis of reward processing in Autism Spectrum Disorders using a number of different neuroimaging techniques, to examine brain function, structure and connectivity. Sonja's contact email is sdelmont@tcd.ie
Codruta Sudrijan is a Clinical Psychologist and a PhD candidate funded by the National Children’s Research Centre (NCRC). “IDeAs: Improving Diagnosis of Anxiety in autism spectrum disorders” is the name of the project that aims to develop a new diagnostic instrument to assess anxiety in children with Autistic Spectrum Disorder. We are trying to identify the clinical features of anxiety in ASD and the key components of anxiety in ASD using multi-informant reports and physiological measures such as: salivary cortisol, salivary amylaze, heart rate, GSR. This will help reduce diagnostic overshadowing, or the confusion between what symptoms represent the core features of a diagnosis as opposed to symptoms of a a comorbid psychiatric disorder. Codruta’s contact email is: codrutas@tcd.ie
Thomas Dawson has a BSc Degree in Intellectual disability nursing from University of Limerick and a BSc Degree in Mental health nursing from Napier University Edinburgh with 5 years clinical experience. He has worked as a nurse in a variety of areas in Intellectual Disability including children services, Autism and challenging behaviour all with underlying mental health conditions such as psychosis mainly schizophrenia with associated severe self injurious behaviour, depression, ASD and OCD. This lead him to pursue a qualification in mental health nursing, where he has worked in the acute setting, Substance misuse, HIV, acquired brain injury and child and adolescent services in Ireland, Scotland and Australia. His dual qualification and experience in Autism along with phlebotomy skills will complement his role as the Research Nurse in the team. Thomas's contact email is dawsont@tcd.ie
Suzanne Bolton graduated from University College Dublin in 2002 with an honours degree in medicine. She completed basic paediatric training and became a member of the Royal College of Physicians in Ireland (Paediatrics) in 2005. She was awarded her Certificate of Completion of Specialist Training in Paediatrics in 2012 following higher specialist training. Her subspecialty area of interest is Community Paediatrics which encompasses child development, child protection, neurodisability, child public health and population paediatrics. Currently Suzanne is completing an MD thesis looking at autism in a clinical population examining rates among children of “new Irish” parents along with scrutinising a larger population based dataset, Growing up in Ireland, looking at the effects of migration on developmental disability and general health in this paediatric population. This work is funded by the National Children’s Hospital Foundation, Tallaght. Suzanne’s contact email is boltons@tcd.ie.