ProfFergal O'Brien

Prof. Fergal O'Brien is Deputy Vice Chancellor for Research & Innovation, Professor of Bioengineering & Regenerative Medicine and Head of the Tissue Engineering Research Group in RCSI, one of the largest advanced biomaterials and tissue engineering/regenerative medicine research groups in Ireland. Following a degree in mechanical engineering and PhD in bone mechanobiology, Prof. O'Brien was a Fulbright Scholar in tissue engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard Medical School. Since his faculty appointment in 2003, he has published over 350 journal articles in leading peer-reviewed international journals, filed over 20 patents/disclosures and supervised over 70 doctoral students to completion. He has a current h-index of >100. He is a recipient of four prestigious European Research Council Awards (Starting Grant, €3 million Advanced grant, and two Proof-of-concept grants). Other accolades include a Fulbright Scholarship (2001), New Investigator Recognition Award by the Orthopaedic Research Society (2002), Science Foundation Ireland, President of Ireland Young Researcher Award (€1.1. million, 2004), Anatomical Society New Fellow of the Year (2014), Fellowship of both Engineers Ireland (2013) and the European Alliance for Medical & Biological Engineering Science (2016). In 2018, O'Brien was elected as member of the Royal Irish Academy (RIA), Ireland's foremost body of experts in the Sciences and Humanities. He was also awarded the RAMI Silver Medal and presented the Samuel Haughton Honorary Lecture at the 2018 Annual Meeting of the RAMI Section of Bioengineering (BinI). He has been included on the Stanford/Elsevier list of the world's top 2% most widely cited scientists published by Stanford university since 2022. In 2023, he was the recipient of the Marshall R Urist, MD award for sustained contribution to muskuloskeletal research, as well as being awarded Fellowship of the Irish Academy of Engineering. In February 2025 Prof. O'Brien presented the 100th Abraham Colles Lecture as part of RCSI Charter Week