Dr David McGrath is Director of Trinity's College Health Service and came to this line of medicine through his work at the University of Edinburgh where he found his calling. He talks us through his early days of experience in emergency medicine and also his work with patients that had what came to be known as AIDS during his time in Kenya. Dr McGrath talks us through drastic changes in student health brought about by the COVID pandemic and how his practice has changed. He gives some good insight on what are main factors in improving student mental health.

Professor Ruth Byrne is a globally acknowledged scholarly leader in the field of Cognitive Psychology: a psychological scientist who has advanced our understanding of the human mind. She has made a distinguished scholarly contribution to psychology through her research on human reasoning and imagination including experimental and computational investigations of reasoning and imaginative thought.

Her discovery that certain kinds of background knowledge can suppress even the simplest of deductive inferences has attracted experimental study worldwide. Artificial intelligence (AI) researchers have modelled it to improve the flexibility of reasoning in AI programmes. It has also led to important theoretical developments in the characterisation of human reasoning. Her work on the human imagination provided for the first time an experimentally tested account of the processes underlying a central aspect of imaginative thought, the creation of alternatives to reality.

Vice Provost Juergen Barkoff on Trinity's Strategic Plan 2020-2025 by Katie S. Byrne and Tom Molloy

Business Studies and German student Zara Hussey spoke with us from her Erasmus placement in Innsbruck, Austria. She has had a life-changing experience while going to university in a new country and different culture. Her non-profit work with JustDiggit has also been eye-opening and rewarding. Listen in to get some of your Erasmus and study abroad questions answered! Zara says she is happy to answer questions about her experience with Erasmus: [email protected].

In order to reach our emissions targets, Dr Brian Caulfield says we need to 'throw the kitchen sink at it.' There is hope however, that we can have better, safe public transport to enrich our lives and get those emissions down. First we need a massive investment in public transport - busses, cycling infrastructure, incentives and more.

Dr Brian Caulfield is an Associate Professor and Head of Discipline in the Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering in Trinity. He has been active in transport research for over 10 years and to date has attracted €4.8m in research funding from both National and EU funding sources. His research focuses upon the optimisation of transportation networks with the goal of reducing emissions and meeting our climate change targets.

Trinity alums Luke and Daniel saw something missing in the streaming market - somewhere for people who genuinely want to support artists in a more direct way. As a result they developed Minm, based on the user-centric payment model, distributing subscription fees based on user's listening habits. Listen in to hear how they got their start and what keeps them on track.

In this podcast we look back over the last ten years of one of the most competitive research institutes in the world – the Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute. Home to world leading scientists, TBSI brings together Schools of Biochemistry and Immunology, Medicine, Pharmacy, Bioengineering and Chemistry to conduct research that has real impact on people’s lives. The TBSI is at the forefront of Irish research and teaching and this is its story.

Host

Dr Megan Hanlon, Research Fellow in Clinical Medicine and creator of Unravelling Science

Interviewees

Professor Kingston Mills, Professor of Experimental Immunology and Biochemistry, and Director of TBSI

Professor Luke O’Neil, Professor of Biochemistry and Immunology

Professor Padraic Fallon, Professor of Translational Immunology, Clinical Medicine

Dr Helen Sheridan, Associate Professor, Pharmacy

Dr Joanna McGouran, Assistant Professor, Chemistry

Dr Michael Monaghan, Ussher Assistant Professor, Mechanical, Manufacturing & Biomedical Engineering

Dr David Finlay, Associate Professor in Immunometabolism and Biochemistry and Associate Professor in Immunometabolism, Pharmacy

Part two of our talk with Professor Rose Anne Kenny on aging well, what the research says will keep us happy and healthy well into old age.

Rose Anne Kenny has accolades through the roof, and for good reason: she is a best selling-author, distinguished professor and successful medical gerontologist. She is also the founding Principal Investigator of Ireland's largest adult population study on the experience of ageing in Ireland - The Irish LongituDinal study on Ageing (TILDA), now in its 12th year of data collection.

But perhaps her most important claim to fame is the positive impact her research is having on ageing populations, around Ireland and beyond. In this podcast, she gives us a glimpse of what we can actually do to improve our chances of aging in the most joyful and healthy way, and crucially why it is that these actions actually help us in the long run.

Student Heather McLean had an idea after a particularly inspiring project on climate action was given by Associate Professor Clare Kelly in her Psychology of Climate Crisis elective. With the help of Head of Catering Moira O'Brien and Healthy Trinity's Martina Mullen, Heather has turned this into a full blown campus experiment. Can we greatly reduce our carbon footprint by eliminating the surcharge on plant-based milks? Listen in to see how the experiment came about and how it is going.