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Jade Gill, a PhD candidate in Psychology, as she shares her inspiring seven-year journey at UL, delving into her pioneering work on designing school wellbeing programmes for adolescent girls from migrant backgrounds.

Discover how Jade deals with the complexities of integration challenges, collaborates with organisations like , and actively involves youth voices to shape her research methodology.

Hear first-hand the rewards and hurdles of working with different stakeholders, and how building strong support networks and supervisor relationships has been crucial to Jade’s success.

This episode is packed with practical advice for prospectiveand current PhD candidates, stories of research inspiring the next generation, and a look at how Jade’s work is creating tangible resources for schools and influencing policy.

Listen to this short podcast to be inspired by Jade’s commitment to making a positive difference—and gain valuable insights for your own research journey.

In an episode with Karen McCreesh, listen to how they explore shoulder pain and what patients really want. 

Discussion includes:

• The mismatch between what patients want and what clinicians think they need
• Role of pain and how to explain this to patients
• Role of group exercise for those not improving with individual exercises

Prof McCreesh is an experienced musculoskeletal physiotherapy educator, researcher, clinician, and sonographer. She is a Professor in Physiotherapy at the School of Allied Health at the 51����, Ireland. She has an extensive track record in shoulder pain research, with a multitude of peer reviewed publications in leading journals. She has been awarded over €1.7m in research funding and leads a team of 3 PhD and 2 post doctoral researchers within the Health Research Institute at UL.

Professor Austin Stack and Alceina O'Brien join Gillian on World Kidney Day to raise awareness for Chronic Kidney Disease, which 1 in 10 Irish people suffer from

Established in 2019 through funding received from the Health Research Institute in UL, the Physical Activity for Health Research Centre is, the first of its kind in Ireland, with a vision is to become “World Leaders in physical activity research that demonstrates real-world impact in policy and practice”.   In this episode Professor Catherine Woods, Director of PAfH Research Centre, Health Research Institute, and the Department of Physical Education and Sport Sciences, Faculty of Education and Health Sciences, UL. Professor James Green, PAfH core member, School of Allied Health, Faculty of Education and Health Sciences, UL are joined by Michael Barry and Micheal Lynch, both who live locally and have been long time attendees of a community-based exercise programme for people living with a chronic condition run in UL.  This programme, named ULMedX,  was designed and is run by the Physical Activity for Health Research Centre. The Research centre is continuing to build an international hub of excellence in the area of physical activity and health research, key to this is a multidisciplinary approach that includes physiologists, sports and exercise scientists, physiotherapists, and health, sports and exercise psychologists.

Professor Hilary Moss, the winner of the Presidents Research Excellence and Impact Early Career Researcher – Consolidator Award 2024. Hilary is Professor at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance and a member of UL’s Health Research Institute.  Hilary’s interdisciplinary research integrates humanities, health sciences and other areas including computer science. Her research is an important scholarly contribution to the growing evidence that engaging with the arts positively impacts health. Innovative solutions are being piloted at UL, for example trialling telehealth music therapy with computer science colleagues for people with dementia, an international innovation.  In this episode Hilary also discusses the need for the inclusion of Music Therapy in health care and she highlights examples of how music therapy specifically focused on dementia care has changed patients and their carers lives.

In this episode, we are joined by Dr. Róisín Cahalan a Physiotherapist, Associate Professor at the 51����, ADCRG, former Riverdance dancer, and editor and co-author of The Complete Irish Dancer: Optimization of Health and Performance in Irish Dance. Dr. Cahalan is revolutionizing the field of Irish dance and advancing our understanding of dancer health through her extensive research and her holistic, collaborative approach to dancers' well-being.

In this episode, we discuss her research and the areas in which Irish Dance methodology can improve in order to optimize a dancers health. We also discuss the new postgraduate certificate program at the 51���� - The Optimization of Health for Performance in Irish Dancers, for which Dr. Cahalan is the Course Director. This online program covers a wide range of topics, including injury prevention, strength and conditioning, nutrition, psychology, and more. It is open to dancers, teachers, healthcare professionals, and parents, emphasizing a collaborative approach to caring for Irish dancers.

Follow us on Instagram @BeyondIrishDancePod and on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

Up to 45% of us will get knee osteoarthritis in our lifetime, yet it is often not prioritised, people with joint disease are being under-served in terms of delivery of evidence-based rehabilitation in the form of exercise and education, particularly for hip and knee osteoarthritis. Evidence suggests that exercise and education is very effective for people with osteoarthritis but often patients feel like they are directed more towards medications and surgical opinions, sometimes due to lack of available services. The GLA:D programme is a group-based programme that aims to aid these patients and improve their general health through exercise and education.

Dr. Clodagh Toomey, Research Fellow, at the School of Allied Health, Faculty of Education and Health Sciences and winner of the Presidents Excellence and Impact Early Career Researcher – Starting Award 2023 discusses her research and her group’s implementation of the GLAS:D programme with collaborators, Ian Dowling, a Chartered Physiotherapist working in private practice from his clinic based in Raheen, Limerick, Ian retired from professional rugby after suffering a hip injury while playing for Munster. Also joining is Stacey Grealis, who lives with Rheumatic Muscular Disease and is a patient researcher and patient contributor on numerous research projects in this field.
 

The Ageing Research Centre members are winners of the UL Presidents Research Excellence and Impact Outstanding Research Collaboration Award for 2023. The Ageing Research Centre (ARC) comprises an interdisciplinary group of academic researchers across the 51����, external academic collaborators, clinical collaborators and a Public and Patient Involvement (PPI) panel of older adults and family caregivers who share a common focus on ageing research. Research from the Ageing Research Centre has been instrumental in driving the adoption and integration of innovative health novel care models for older adults and their family caregivers. This research has played a pivotal role in shaping national policies pertaining to health and social care for older adults. On this podcast we are joined by members of the ARC along with patient participants who have helped to shape the research and the direction of the centre.Recorded by GKMedia.ie

The term heroes have been widely used to describe those working in the frontline during the global Covid-19 pandemic. Dr Elaine Kinsella, President’s Research Excellence and Impact Award winner at 51���� and Dr Rachel Sumner, Cardiff Metropolitan University discuss their survey of these key workers, focussing on the wellbeing and attitudes of those working in the frontline, emergency workers and those working across service industries and how the heroes tag was viewed by those workers.  

Christy sits down with Dr. Elayne Ahern, who is a postgraduate researcher at the 51����.

We felt that this podcast was extremely relevant to mental health week, because it addresses the role of technology in mental health therapy.

Dr. Ahern’s research spans from the effectiveness of online therapy to the application of cognitive development to combat depression. This is an excellent discussion, not only for psychology students and clinicians but also anyone interested in psychology. It’s one of our favourite podcasts to date and provides insight into how therapists can improve their standard of practice.