Professor Maria McNamara, Funded Investigator in iCRAG who is based at the UCC School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences and Environmental Research Institute, has been awarded €2,460,114 by the European Reseach Council. ERC Consolidator Grants are designed to support excellent Principal Investigators at the career stage at which they may still be consolidating their own independent research team or programme and must demonstrate the ground-breaking nature, ambition and feasibility of their scientific proposal.
Prof. McNamara’s research aims to understand how key biomolecules such as melanin, keratin and collagen evolved in animals, and to understand how well these important biomolecules can be preserved in fossils.
The project will establish UCC as a global centre for cutting-edge research on fossils and evolution. Prof McNamara’s team will use the research results as the basis for exciting STEM-based community engagement activities with the public.