Recognising our people 2026 Research Excellence Winners

Dr Emer Gallagher is a Lecturer in Finance in the Department of Global Business and Enterprise at Ulster University. She completed her PhD at Ulster University in 2015, examining Northern Ireland’s property market crisis. Her post-doctoral research focuses on entrepreneurial and small business finance, and SME innovation and growth.

She has published peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters and has presented at major international conferences. Her work was included in Ulster University’s REF2021 submission (UoA 17: Business and Management Studies).

Emer is a Co-Investigator on TRACE (Technological Revolution Towards an Agri-Food Circular Economy), a €5.89m PEACEPLUS-funded programme (July 2025-July 2029) led by Ulster University. This cross-border project supports SMEs working across products-of animal-origin supply chains to adopt digital technologies to improve transparency, productivity and sustainability.

She supervises MSc and PhD students and as a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, adopts a research-informed approach to teaching.

Dr Sarah Craig’s academic career has been committed to research that makes substantive and real-world impact, specifically within the Northern Ireland context. The last number of years Dr Craig and colleagues have focused on collaborations with national human rights institutions (Equality Commission for Northern Ireland, Irish Human Rights Commission and Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission) on critical and current politico-legal issues providing analysis of the complex legal implications of EU equality and refugee law in a post-Brexit, Northern Ireland context.

Joining the School of Law at Ulster University in 2023 has provided Dr Craig with the opportunities to purse this research, linking up with world-leading researchers in the field and allowing for a collaborative research space, with specific mention to Professor Rory O’Connell and Dr Claire Lougarre who she has undertaken her most of my recent research with. She is very honoured to be named the Future Research Leader this year.

Dr Usman Hadi is a leading researcher in 5G and 6G wireless and optical communications, autonomous systems, and AI-driven engineering applications. He has authored over 109 REF-compliant publications, including 63 journal articles, with an H-index of 19 and more than 1,500 citations. He has been recognised among the top 2 percent most cited researchers globally for four consecutive years since 2021. In 2025 alone, he published 10 high-impact journal papers, further strengthening his global standing.

As Principal Investigator, he has secured competitive funding from Innovate UK, EPSRC programmes, ISPF, British Council, Garfield Weston Trust, and Belfast City Council. He is the Founder of Drone Sentinel, an AI-driven cybersecurity platform that won the Innovate UK CyberASAP Pitch of the Year Award 2025, and Co-Founder of AURA Law, an AI platform improving access to legal guidance. Dr Hadi is strong advocate for role of Women in STEM and advances socially responsible innovations.

Dr Elaine Murray’s research has transformed understanding of mental health in university students and young adults, delivering measurable benefits for individuals, institutions and policy.

Through one of Europe’s most comprehensive student mental health programmes, she has revealed the true scale, determinants and persistence of mental disorders during the transition to higher education, directly shaping prevention and early-intervention strategies.

Her leadership of large, cross-border trials has pioneered scalable, technology-enabled psychological interventions now informing university wellbeing provision. In parallel, she has advanced personalised psychiatry by identifying biological signatures of depression through innovative multi-omics research, leading to the development of a novel saliva-based diagnostic tool.

Dr Murray’s work has rapidly influenced national student mental health policy, institutional practice and public debate, while building a collaborative research ecosystem that trains future leaders across academia and industry. Her impact lies in integrating discovery science, clinical innovation and policy translation to improve outcomes for young people at a critical life stage.

Over the past seven years (2018–2025), Dr Michele Gazzola has produced an exceptional and internationally recognised body of research, publishing 45 outputs with collaborators from 14 countries. This includes peer-reviewed journal articles, books, and policy reports, with REF assessments confirming sustained international excellence (multiple 4* outputs).

Key contributions include a major Routledge handbook shaping pedagogy and interdisciplinarity in language policy, a 4* journal article that led directly to British Academy funding, and a 4* chapter underpinning future REF impact case studies.

Dr Gazzola’s research has generated clear and demonstrable policy impact, directly informing language policy design and evaluation for regional governments in Italy and influencing EU multilingualism policy through commissioned work for the European Parliament. He demonstrates strong research leadership through founding and coordinating an international research network, journal editorship, centre co-directorship, and successful PhD supervision, alongside securing over £420,000 in competitive external funding from prestigious international and national bodies.

Professor Emeir McSorley has an exceptional combination of world-leading research excellence, translational impact, and transformative academic leadership. Internationally, her research in nutritional immunology has shaped global understanding of the risks and benefits of fish and marine nutrient consumption, directly informing dietary guidelines and public health policy for organisations including FAO/WHO, FDA and EFSA. Her sustained success in securing major international funding and delivering REF-rated outstanding impact has strengthened Ulster University’s global reputation and research standing.

Within the Nutrition Innovation Centre for Food and Health (NICHE), she champions the vibrant, ‘Fish and Seafood for Health (FISH)’ research group, fostering an inclusive and supportive research culture that nurtures early career researchers, postdoctoral staff and doctoral students. Through effective mentorship, strategic leadership roles and industry engagement, she has enhanced research capacity, postgraduate experience and interdisciplinary collaboration. Professor Emeir McSorley work delivers lasting benefits locally, nationally and internationally, making a distinctive and enduring difference well beyond Ulster University.

Professor Michaela Black delivers a strong passion for developing practices and training for research ethics and integrity of the highest standard for Sustainable, Responsible and Ethical AI, leading to her well-known mantra - RAISE: Responsible AI iS an Enablier.

Her research networks and projects have more recently focused on AI for Health care including a European-wide healthcare platform for policymakers to support decisions on health and wellbeing services improving impacts for citizens in lots of areas including diabetes, lung cancer, cognitive functions. Her passion for extensive collaboration with PPI ensuring citizen and public contribution to informing numerous policies, government strategies and health care interventions and solutions.

Currently she leads on two major centres: AI Collaboration Centre £16.3M (across 2 campuses) and City Deal Innovation Centre CARL £11M (Derry/Londonderry) successfully leading on growing staff capacity, stakeholder engagements, innovation opportunities and solutions and research capability to enable to secure sustainable futures for both.

Professor Leanne McCormick is an internationally recognised social historian, specialising in women’s and gender history, the history of sexuality and medicine in the North of Ireland/Northern Ireland, and the Irish diaspora. Her research has gained considerable media and public attention and includes a best-selling book that has been optioned for film as well as a successful podcast, radio play and international multi-sensory exhibition. Leanne’s research on Mother and Baby Institutions and Magdalene Laundries has changed government policy, leading to the establishment of a Truth Recovery Independent Panel which she co-chairs, which will direct and make recommendations to government and the forthcoming Public Inquiry.

She has a led high-profile projects and brought in substantial research funding from a range of prestigious sources. Leanne has developed postgraduate opportunities, supervised award-winning PhD researchers and gained international recognition as a keynote speaker and as an adviser on multiple boards, organisations and projects.

Professor Bond has supervised PhD researchers who have produced high quality papers that have been included in REF2021 and PhD researchers who have made significant contributions to REF2021 impact case studies with their underpinning papers. He has supervised ~23 PhD researchers to successful completion.

As a supervisor of PhD projects that are funded/co-funded by companies and organisations (i.e. Kainos, ORCHA, HSC, PHA, Stryker) as well as Royal Commission 1851 Industry Fellowships, he is dedicated to promoting PhD research with impact.

To quote Raymond’s nominator Professor Mulvenna, “I have collaborated with Professor Bond on many PhD researcher projects over the years and have always been impressed with his combination of technical skills and advice to the researchers on data analysis and machine learning techniques, together with his ’soft skills’ in communicating concepts and approaches clearly and with patience to the researcher. Raymond is an asset to the University and Doctoral College.

Dr Paul Darby has a sustained record of excellence in PhD supervision. He has supervised seven PhD researchers to completion, prioritising a collaborative dialogical approach that has empowered them to flourish as critical thinkers and independent researchers in HEIs, Further Education and the charitable and private sectors.

Paul’s supervision of international PhD researchers who have focused on sport and ‘development’ in international contexts including Malawi, Nigeria, and Ghana, testifies to his commitment to internationalise Ulster’s research community and expand research capacity to build a sustainable world in line with the UN SDGs.

Through his work as a Postgraduate Tutor between 2008-2016, his leadership of the Centre for Sport in Society since 2008 and his role in securing a Sport in Society Pathway in the ESRC NINE DTP, Paul has led the development of an inclusive and stimulating research culture that has enhanced both research supervision practices and the potential of PhD researchers, ECR’s and other colleagues.

Dr Sonyia McFadden’s world-class research has a transformative impact on society locally and internationally. Successful supervision has enabled the next generation of researchers to develop from students into Early Career Researchers and supervisors themselves acting as PI with their own competitively won European research grants.

Results of all research have informed and transformed health education through creative and innovative techniques throughout a global pandemic and beyond. Use of novel digital tools have challenged inequality in education across countries to help build a sustainable world globally. Demonstrating what is possible with our accelerating data futures may inspire future researchers to go further.

Dr Victoria McCollum’s doctoral supervision has transformed how creative, practice-based and interdisciplinary PhD research is supported at Ulster. Working across screen, cultural studies and business, she has supervised a sustained portfolio of doctoral researchers tackling complex, ethically sensitive and globally relevant topics, from gendered violence and queer representation to digital cultures and post-conflict storytelling. Her supervision is distinguished by its care-led, inclusive and innovative approach, enabling researchers to take creative and intellectual risks while achieving successful completion and meaningful impact.

Through leadership in practice-as-research supervision, trauma-aware methodologies and cross-Faculty doctoral mentoring, she has influenced supervisory culture well beyond her own discipline. Her PhD researchers emerge as confident, ethically grounded scholars and practitioners whose work contributes to world-leading research impact, public engagement and international visibility.

McCollum’s contribution demonstrates how doctoral supervision, when rooted in creativity, care and courage, can shape research culture, empower marginalised voices and strengthen the University’s impact-intensive mission.

Some of the frailest and most vulnerable people in society live in care homes.  Our research has shown that their wellbeing and quality of life can be significantly enhanced by investing in the people who care for them. This is the driving force behind our collaboration with external partners on ‘My Home Life’ (MHL), an international research generation and translation programme aimed at enhancing leadership and quality improvement in care homes.

The MHL team has over 80 publications, 89 conferences presentations and over £5.6m in research funding to Ulster University.  In 2025, the DoH conducting its own independent evaluation of the programme.  The overwhelmingly positive results led to further funding (£645,169) and Minister Nesbitt’s announcement that “Ulster University’s delivery of the My Home Life (MHL) Leadership Support Programme for Care Homes on behalf of the Department, has been one of the key drivers in improving the quality of life for care home residents, relatives and staff across NI since 2013”.

Our external collaborators include high-ranking policy makers and stakeholders from statutory and other non-governmental organisations who have highlighted the benefits of the programme and the leadership of Ulster University in shaping care home policy, practice and culture nationally and internationally.

1711 Ireland: A Witch’s Fate was a serious game that explored Northern Ireland's dark heritage. Players were invited to step back to the year 1711 to explore the trial of the Islandmagee witches, one of Ireland’s last witch trials. Through gamification, it re-examined the trial of eight women and one man, reframing how it is remembered, and how people derive meaning from these traumatic historical events through a new lens.

While serious games are often defined by explicit educational intent over entertainment value, 1711 Ireland: A Witch’s Fate attempts to bridge the gap between heritage scholarship and videogame commercialisation. It exposed established videogame audiences to Northern Ireland's dark heritage and to key themes of diversity, social exclusion, and gender-based violence. The project challenged conventional representation of witchcraft in videogames while growing industry and staff and student interdisciplinary collaboration at Ulster University across subjects, schools and sectors.