iCRAG is pleased to welcome three new Funded Investigators who have joined the Centre recently.

Dr Jennifer Keenahan is Assistant Professor in Civil Engineering, UCD. Dr Keenahan’s research interests lie in the use of Computational Fluid Dynamics for the Built Environment, particularly wind analysis and also the use of CFD for monitoring scour on offshore wind turbine foundations.

Dr Chris Mays is a Lecturer in Palaeontology at the School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University College Cork. From 2012–2017, Chris was Lecturer and Postdoctoral Researcher at Monash University. His research focused on the south polar fossil forests from New Zealand, Australia and Antarctica. He has employed and developed a range of imaging and 3-D ‘virtual palaeontology’ techniques in the realm of fossil plants, such as neutron tomography and synchrotron X-ray tomography. Chris is a commissioned author for Scientific American, and published his first popular science book in 2020. He was awarded the Mary Wade Prize in 2016 and the Dorothy Hill Award in 2020; these are the most prestigious early and mid-career research awards, respectively, in Australasian palaeontology and Chris is the only recipient of both. Chris’ research interests have focused on mass extinctions, and the responses of plants to past greenhouse events. In his own words: “I study fossil plants to reconstruct the changes of past ecosystems during extreme warming events. These can tell us a lot about the long-term effects we may, and may not, expect to see in our presently warming world.”

Dr Michael Stock is Assistant Professor in the Department of Geology in Trinity College Dublin. His overarching research focus is on the use of state-of-the-art geochemical techniques for understanding the Earth system. This principally involves combining aspects of igneous petrology, volcanology and geochemistry to understand the architecture and dynamics of sub-volcanic magma systems. Much of his work couples novel geochemical analyses with numerical models or geophysical observations. By studying rocks and minerals that have been erupted at active and dormant volcanoes in the past, Michael aims to identify pre-eruptive signals that might aid volcano monitoring efforts in the future. More recently, Michael has started applying similar methods to understand the formation of magmatic mineral deposits. He is particularly interested in the potential for mafic/ultra mafic Ni-Co-(Au)-PGE mineralisation in Irish Palaeogene intrusions.