For over 20 years now, I’ve been reporting on Irish science at home and abroad, in print and radio, and to a lesser extent on TV, and I’m pleased to say I’ve won a couple of awards along the way. Increasingly, I’ve become interested in scientific heritage and the history of science.
Most of my journalistic work in recent years has been popular science radio programmes for RTE and Lyric FM. I’m now also a contributor to Every Monday and a guest blogger at GreenMe.
Before that, I worked primarily in print: as joint-editor of Technology Ireland for 10 years in the 1990s, and as a regular science writer with The Irish Times. In the early 1990s I covered the full gamut of science for the Irish Times and the Sunday Business Post, as well as enjoying many years as the weekly science correspondent for RTE’s Pat Kenny radio show.
Recent radio series include:
The Goldilocks World (geology & earth science), RTE Radio 1
Left Brain, Right Brain (art and science) Lyric FM
Washed, dried and pressed (stories from the National Botanic Gardens), RTE Radio 1
Chopped, pickled and stuffed (stories from the Natural History Museum), RTE Radio 1
The Quantum Leap (popular science magazine series) RTE Radio 1
Recent print articles include:
Humane hanging & other stories (Irish Times)
Scientist with Irish link beat Galileo to the moon! (Irish Times)
A scientific detective story about the world’s first computer
Series of profiles of biotech researchers for a special Ireland supplement in The Scientist, summer 2008A Matter of Breeding: Emmeline Hill is taking her family’s horse-breeding history into the genomic era.
Gut Instincts: Patrick Johnston’s team is using transcriptome mapping to help choose treatments for colorectal cancer.
Combination Therapy: Galway’s Remedi center brings together stem cells and gene therapy to tissue repair.
Drawn to Death: Apoptosis has fascinated Trinity College Dublin’s Seamus Martin since his PhD 20 years ago.
Sweet Spot: Diabetes researchers at the University of Ulster may have hit a winner with a hormone dubbed GIP.
