Members of the Research Committee and Professor Gina Quin, President of NCI, welcome Dr Simon Caton (centre) to NCI Research Day 2025

The sixth annual Research Day at National College of Ireland was well attended online and on campus on 12th June, 2025. Warmly welcomed by Professor Gina Quin, President of NCI, academics from all disciplines, including staff from the Early Learning Initiative (ELI) and the Library, presented their work, following guest speaker, Dr Simon Caton, Assistant Professor of Computer Science at UCD, who formerly lectured at NCI, whose keynote looked at the need to ensure bias does not inform Machine Learning technologies that affect citizens, touching on a few dilemmas for fairness in machine learning research, and comment on some of the future directions.

Bringing visibility to research at NCI

The first two presentations kicking off the event focused on making research collaboration easier within the college, and in making it more accessible and visible both to fellow researchers and to the public. Sam Cogan, Head of Teaching Enhancement and Digital Learning, discussed how to better use NCI-owned channels to disseminate research.

Professor Paul Stynes, Dean of NCI’s School of Computing, and Conor Sisk, Website and Digital Marketing Officer at NCI, launched an updated Research section on the college’s website to better showcase the depth and impact of its academic work. The redesigned platform highlights ongoing projects, research achievements, and institutional partnerships across all schools and centres. It also introduces department-specific research hubs and improved navigation to support greater visibility and engagement.

This update is part of a broader strategic focus on strengthening research integrity, transparency, and collaboration at NCI. Further enhancements—including an Online Research Office and a register of active research partnerships—are underway to support the growing needs of the college’s research community.

Prize winners

Acknowledging both Senior Researchers (including research groups/funded projects with senior team members) and Early Stage/Young Researchers (up to 5 years post PhD or no PhD), two prizes were awarded on the day.

Dr Conor Thornberry, who lectures in Psychology at NCI and earlier this year was recognised by Frontiers as ‘a rising star in cognition’, took the Early Stage/Young Researcher award. His paper, Understanding and predicting spatial navigation ability in humans using brain oscillations and learning behaviour, discusses the neural mechanisms of spatial navigation across learning, memory, and ageing. which also evaluates the potential of computational neuroscience to support early detection of navigation-specific deficits, an early cognitive marker for preclinical Alzheimer’s disease.

The Senior award was presented to Metanode, an AI-first learning and training platform designed to help companies train their teams more effectively and more efficiently. Unlike existing traditional learning systems, Metanode enables organisations to take a holistic, data-driven approach to workforce development, ensuring that training is targeted, efficient, and aligned with real business needs and ROI metrics.

Dr Michael Goldrick, CEO and co-founder of Metanode, as well as principal investigator, is an Associate Professor in NCI, Visiting Professor of Educative Technologies at Eötvös Loránd University and a Research Fellow for DCU. Co-founder and Technocal Lead, Dr Keith Maycock is a Programme Director and Lecturer in NCI’s School of Computing, and is also co-founder of NetSearch Platform Limited. Professor Donald Clark is CPO and Product Lead. Yinglian Deng is Full-Stack Developer at Metanode. Emre Kavak, is a software developer and MSc candidate in Software Design with AI. He holds a Higher Diploma in Computing from the National College of Ireland, graduating with First Class Honours. Shudong Wang is a Full stack Developer at Metanode. Michael, Yinglian and Emre were present to collect their prize from Vice Dean of the School of Computing, Professor Cristina Hava Muntean, and Chair of this year's Research Committee, Associate Professor in Computing, Dr Arghir Moldovan, Chair of this year's Research Committee.

Full Programme

• KEYNOTE: Fairness in Machine Learning: Why, How, and What’s Next? - Dr Simon Caton (School of Computer Science, University College Dublin)
• An exploratory study: The influence of a professional non-family accountant within a family firm and the impact on institutional logics - Theresa Mulcahy (School of Business and Humanities)
• A study on the role of machine learning in the financial services industry, specifically in the mutual fund sector - Dr Rakesh Kondamuri (School of Business and Humanities)
• Home visitors participatory research - Michelle Moore, Lisa Farrelly, Melanie Cassidy, Lisa Miao, Maria Cannon, Anca Oltean, Dana (Qi) Wang, Deirdre McCarthy (Early Learning Initiative; Equality, Diversity and Inclusion)
• Mathematics and AI for “Smart” Living - Dr Amit K. Chattopadhyay (School of Business and Humanities)
• Participatory research on parental attitudes towards STEM in Ireland - Nikki Ryan, Kate Darmody, Dr David Mothersill, Dr Anu Sahni, Fabián Armendáriz, Brigina O'Riordan, Prof Josephine Bleach, Prof Paul Stynes (School of Business and Humanities; School of Computing; Early Learning Initiative)
• Explainable AI for efficient and transparent network traffic classification techniques - Dr Mosab Hamdan (School of Computing)
• Privacy-preserving logistic regression for federated learning environments with a policy to reduce the training time - Dr Jorge Mario Cortes Mendoza (School of Computing)
• Cognitive performance in patients diagnosed with NMDAR encephalitis compared to patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls - Dr David Mothersill (School of Business and Humanities)
• Metanode learning system - Dr Mike Goldrick, Yinglian Deng, Emre Kavak, Shudong Wang, Dr Keith Maycock (School of Business and Humanities; School of Computing)
• Digital technologies in early childhood education and care practice (DigiLEP in ECEC) - Dr Meera Oke (School of Business and Humanities)
• Advancing sustainability through green science and technology: AI, electric vehicles and energy conservation - Anshu Shahdeo (School of Computing)
• Loneliness and mental health: Understanding their reciprocal and interactive nature - Dr Robert Fox (School of Business and Humanities)
• Understanding and predicting spatial navigation ability in humans using brain oscillations and learning behaviour - Dr Conor Thornberry (School of Business and Humanities).

“I very much want to acknowledge all Heads of Department, who encouraged their teams to participate, and all those here today who took up the challenge and shared their research with us today. I’d also like to recognise the work of my fellow committee members, and of President of NCI, Professor Gina Quin, for her enduring support of research. Especially today, I’d like to thank our keynote speaker and former colleague, Dr Simon Caton, for his time and insight,” said Dr Arghir-Nicolae Moldovan, Associate Professor in Computing and Chair of the Research Committee at NCI.

Research Committee 2025: Dr Miguel Flores, Dr Cristina Hava Muntean, Dr Ita Kennelly, Dr Adriana Chis, Dr Arghir Moldovan (chair)