• Question: What do you specialise in?

    Asked by markslev to Sive, Michael, Emma, Ciara, Cathal on 13 Nov 2013.
    • Photo: Sive Finlay

      Sive Finlay answered on 13 Nov 2013:

      Hi Mark,

      I specialise in macroecology and macroevolution so studying the large-scale processes of how animals evolve and how they survive in their habitats.
      My PhD project is studying convergent evolution among tenrecs and other mammals. I’m interested in measuring how physically similar different species are and trying to figure out whether animals that look similar also live in similar environments.
      So I guess it’s a fairly broad speciality but there you go 🙂
      Sive

    • Photo: Emma Cahill

      Emma Cahill answered on 14 Nov 2013:

      Hey Mark,
      Im a Neuroscientist and I specialise in drug addiction and learning and memory. I try to understand how these things are performed by the brain (still trying!)

    • Photo: Michael Nolan

      Michael Nolan answered on 14 Nov 2013:

      I apply quantum mechanics to questions involving new materials in the energy field.

      So what this means is I used big computers (parallel systems with thousands of computers hooked up together) to solve the equations that describe how electrons interact to make chemical bonds and drive chemistry. This is applied to take new materials and predict their properties instead of playing in the lab, so this is a faster, cheaper and safer approach.

      We also investigate the fundamentals of conversion of water and carbon dioxide into more useful fuels like hydrogen and natural gas.

      This is exciting since it will remove our dependence on oil coal and gas extracted from the earth as well as removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

      M

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