Through an AIMS-RN Studentship in 2026, Emma joined the COB-MS team. At the time she was a third-year Occupational Therapy student at the University of Galway. She had completed clinical placements in hand therapy and community settings. She has a particular interest in neurological conditions, especially their cognitive impacts. She hopes to pursue a career in neurorehabilitation in the future, including working with individuals living with Multiple Sclerosis. She contributed to research on MS clinical trial recruitment through social media platforms.

Sinéad was awarded a Summer Studentship in 2026 when she was a third-year Occupational Therapy student at the University of Galway. She had completed clinical placements in paediatrics and acute care for older adults. She has a strong interest in research and evidence-based practice. She joined the COB-MS team where she assisted with research exploring whether a sense of belonging influences participant retention in clinical trials.

Alice worked with us in her 3rd year Occupational Therapy at the University of Galway. Her placements had focused on community settings such as paediatric intellectual disabilities and rehabilitation for older adults.​

That summer (2025), Alice undertook research with Evidence Synthesis Ireland under the supervision of Dr Sinéad Hynes & Ms Éle Quinn. Alice’s role in the project focused on the People’s Review, an online project which aimed to involve the public in a systematic review of a healthcare intervention. Specifically, she interviewed members of The People's Review steering group over a period of 8 weeks. 

Laura was in 2nd year Medical Student at the University of Galway when she worked with us (summer 2025). Her academic interests centred around evidence-based medicine. She is particularly passionate about initiatives that make medical research more accessible and collaborative.
Laura was excited to undertake research with Evidence Synthesis Ireland under the supervision of Dr Sinéad Hynes and Ms Éle Quinn. Laura’s role in the project focused on an online initiative with The People’s Review that involves the public in conducting a systematic review of a healthcare intervention. She was involved in core review tasks including preparing the review protocol and supporting various behind-the-scenes elements of the project over an 8-week period.

Hazeema was a first-year medical student at University College Cork during her AIMS-RN summer studentship in 2025 (co-supervised by Dr Fiadhnait O'Keeffe). During her undergraduate studies at the University of Western Ontario, she conducted research on the psychobiology of eating disorders, the link between cardiovascular disease, dementia, and depression, as well as quality improvement initiatives aimed at improving healthcare access for marginalized communities.

Passionate about translational research, she is now beginning a project on neuropsychological interventions in multiple sclerosis (MS), where she will conduct a scoping review to better understand approaches to addressing cognitive challenges in MS.

Jessica was a 4th year Medical student at the University of Galway when she undertook at summer studentship in 2025. She had gained research experience in both neurology and endocrinology with both clinical and laboratory experience, with a particular interest in neurology. She has previously published a literature review on the topic of Alzheimer’s disease, reflecting her engagement with evidence-based medicine. ​Over an eight-week research period, she will focus on addressing the topic of health equity in the multiple sclerosis patient population.

Lenora was a final year Speech and Language Therapy student at the University of Galway when she undertook a summer studentship. During her studies, she completed a range of clinical placements including adult communication and dysphagia care in acute and rehabilitative settings. She also gained valuable experience in qualitative research methods while conducting her final year project on the lived experiences of family carers.​

Megan worked as a research assistant on the Diversifying Dementia Services project. In this role she helped to produce and disseminate a survey to participants and facilitated focus groups to develop recommendations for the future care needs of older LGBTQ+ adults. Her MSc thesis examined dementia-service use by LGBTQ+ people with dementia and their caregivers. Megan is training to be a Clinical Psychologist at the University of Galway. 

Beatrice Charamba was a postdoctoral researcher in biostatistics on the COB-MS research project. Her research interests are in the areas of Biostatistics, Statistical modelling, design and analysis of experiments, and Functional, Longitudinal and Bayesian data analysis. She completed her PhD in Biostatistics in National University of Ireland Galway, under the supervision of Dr Andrew Simpkin. Her PhD is titled "Bayesian Functional Concurrent regression modelling for missing sensor data." 

When she worked with Dr Hynes in 2023, Elise was a 3rd year medical student at the University of Galway. Her research was funded by the AIMS-Research Network Summer Student Programme. Her project was “Evaluating the public and patient involvement in a feasibility randomised controlled trial of Cognitive Rehabilitation in Multiple Sclerosis”. This work has since been published. 

Josh is a qualified occupational therapist, trained at the University of Galway. He undertook a HRB Summer Studentship 2023 under the supervision of Dr. Sinéad Hynes. Josh's research project was titled: "A Qualitative Evaluation of a Stroke Integration Group on Stroke Patients in the West of Ireland". This project aimed to examine the experiences of stroke patients that have engaged with a Stroke Integration Group. The project was completed in collaboration with Croí.

Chris Dwyer worked as s a Project Manager and Post-Doctoral Researcher on the COB-MS trial from July 2019-September 2021. Following this, Chris took up a role as Assistant Lecturer in Applied Psychology in Technological University of the Shannon. His research is in the areas of health interventions, clinical decision-making, the psychology of education and critical thinking.

Chris remains involved with the definitive trial of the COB-MS as a co-applicant and collaborator.

Blog:  ‘Thoughts on Thinking’ at psychologytoday.com

Fionnuala worked a research assistant on the COB-MS trial in 2020-2021. Her main role was the administration of cognitive assessments to participants online. In this role she also investigated the reliability of using online testing of cognition in people living with MS compared to in-person testing.​ This work was published.

She began her PhD at Cardiff University in October 2021 on harnessing motor training-induced brain plasticity to improve cognition in Huntington’s disease.

Anusha worked as a research assistant for the COB-MS trial in 2019 and 2020. ​Anusha Moses is a clinical researcher who has worked in an array of clinical and non-clinical trials. She has a background in medical sciences and has a master's degree in clinical research.

She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. at the University of Twente in the Netherlands.

Eimear worked as a Research Assistant with the COB-MS team from October 2019 until July 2020.

Her main role within the project was collecting in-person data from people with MS who were taking part in the COB-MS programme. 

Following her role within the COB-MS team, Eimear worked as an Assistant Psychologist in the University of Limerick Counselling service and began training in Clinical Psychology in September 2022.

Kinza qualified as an occupational therapist from National University of Ireland Galway in July 2021. 

Kinza completed the HRB Studentship in the summer of 2020 under the supervision of Dr Sinéad Hynes and Jackie Fox.​ The research project titled “Dating with a diagnosis: the lived experience of people with Multiple Sclerosis” was presented at ECTRIMS conference 2021 and published in Sexuality and Disability.

Joan qualified as an occupational therapist in 2021.  During her final year as an occupational therapy student, Joan assisted Dr Sinéad Hynes on the NIPS project titled:  "Needs of people with primary progressive multiple sclerosis (NIPS) – a cross-cultural study". This study was part of a larger European project to assess the needs of people living with primary progressive multiple sclerosis (MS) in Europe. 

Rebecca qualified as an occupational therapist in 2022.  She received a School of Health Sciences Summer Studentship 2021 and worked under supervision of Drs Sinéad Hynes and Hazel Killeen. Rebecca worked on two projects as part of the studentship. Her work focused on “Mitigating the impacts of confinement and distancing due to COVID-19 through service learning in occupational therapy education: evaluation of the Build-a-Box programme”. Additionally, she worked alongside Dr. Sinéad Hynes on the research project titled “Diversifying dementia service delivery in Ireland: Developing consensus-based recommendations for the future needs of older LGTBQI+ adults”.​

Alex was awarded a HRB Trial Methodology Research Network summer studentship in summer 2020 for a project titled: "A qualitative investigation of motivations, organisational culture and practicalities influencing occupational therapists’ involvement in research programs: A study-within-a-trial." This work was published as part of the wider COB-MS study-within-a-trial.