Associate Deans

Dr Denise O'Brien is an Assistant Professor/Lecturer and Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies in the School of Nursing Midwifery and Health Systems appointed July 2021-Present time. I am a registered Nurse, Midwife and Midwifery Tutor with the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland (NMBI).

I have extensive knowledge and expertise of midwifery practice and contemporary maternity care gained during clinical practice (1993-2006) and a strong national and international profile as a midwifery leader in research and professional development. I was nominated Head of Subject for Midwifery and held the post for a total of eight years (2010-2012) (2016-2021). Denise has taught in the discipline of midwifery since 2000 and has extensive experience in curriculum development and design at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. The central focus of my research profile is improving maternity care and women's experiences of childbirth. As a researcher, leader, mentor and supervisor I have led on a substantial number of research projects building a positive research culture with students, faculty and clinical colleagues across the Ireland East Hospital Group. I have published extensively in my subject area of midwifery. I have over 60 publications including 27 peer reviewed journal articles of which I am the first author in four and last author in eight across a range of high impact journals including both high and low impact interdisciplinary journals (e.g Women and Birth, 3.349, Midwifery, 2.64, Journal of Advanced Nursing, 3.05, Journal of Clinical Nursing 4.423, European Journal of Midwifery,0.7 Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 0.81). My work is well cited internationally, and a publication published in 2021 is currently listed in the top twenty most cited and downloaded article in the Journal of Midwifery since 2020 My publications are predominantly linked with collaborative research with midwifery and obstetric clinical colleagues as part of the Joint Research Network group funded by the Health Service Executive. I have developed a strong track record nationally for conducting impactful collaborative interdisciplinary research that has guided service delivery. I was a member of the team who won research project of the year for the Health care centre awards in 2019, Denise is the current UCD vice-chair of the Joint Research Network Group ( UCD/ NMH), previous Chair for three years and member since its foundation in 2007.

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Dr. Deirdre O’Donnell (Ph.D., H. Dip Stats, M.Phil., BA) is an Assistant Professor of Health Systems at the UCD School of Nursing, Midwifery and Health Systems, and the Associate Dean for Research, Innovation, and Impact. She is the Director of the Research Degrees Programme and is Co-Director of the UCD Centre for Research, Education, and Innovation in Health Systems (UCD IRIS).

Dr. O’Donnell is a proponent of system-embedded research and the translation of research evidence into health service innovation, evaluation, and reform. She has over ten years experience of developing and translating research evidence for innovation and reform in older people’s health and social care. This includes researching teamwork and interprofessional collaboration in the specialist community care of older people, health service model programme evaluation, supported decision-making in health and social care, elder abuse prevention and intervention, and later life well-being.

Dr O’Donnell is a member of the Irish Gerontological Society, a UCD PPI IGNITE Executive Board member as well as a member of the Research and Policy Advisory Committee for Family Carers Ireland. She has a strong track record of collaborative and co-design research with older people and with family carers and is a co-founder of the OPEN Network which aims to promote the involvement of older people in academic health and social care research. Her research emphasises participatory collaboration and a user-driven approach to health policy development, implementation, evaluation, and reform.

She is currently PI for an HRB-funded Investigator Led Award (ECLECTIC) which is evaluating interprofessional collaboration within community specialist teams integrating the health and social care of older people in Ireland. ECLECTIC involves a partnership with the National Clinical Programme for Older People (NCPOP) and collaboration with Age Friendly Ireland and Family Carers Ireland. The project aims to understand what works to support interprofessional collaboration in community specialist teams for older people and why it works. It also seeks to know what doesn’t work and why not. In addition, the project will explore the perspectives of older people and family carers on what is important to them when receiving care from a healthcare team.

Dr O’Donnell has ten years of teaching experience in SNMHS undergraduate and postgraduate programmes where she has led the development and reform of curriculum for evidence synthesis and translation. She is a member of the EVIBEC collaborative; an interdisciplinary team of academics from the UCD College of Health Sciences with a common interest in the design and delivery of Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) education. With the support of funding from the HEA and the National Forum, the EVIBEC collaborative developed a cross-discipline, vertically integrated learning outcomes framework to support EPB curriculum development, delivery, and sharing of resources across entry-level health care professional programmes.

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Dr Michael Connolly is Joint Associate Professor of Clinical Nursing at UCD School of Nursing, Midwifery & Health Systems and Our Lady’s Hospice & Care Services.   He was appointed Associate Dean for Teaching and Learning in April 2023, having previously been Head of Subject for Adult General Nursing, from 2018-2023.

Michael has worked at UCD School of Nursing, Midwifery & Health Systems since 2001 and has significant experience in nursing and healthcare education. Michael was awarded a College of Health and Agricultural Sciences Teaching Excellence Award in 2022.

Michael’s teaching interests include palliative care; ethical and legal issues in nursing, midwifery and health care; ethical issues at end-of-life; spirituality in health and palliative care; health inequalities; LGBTQ+ health and end-of-life care. His research interests include palliative care education; palliative care competence development; spirituality and ethical issues in palliative care and at end of life; LGBTQ+ health and end-of-life care.  Michael has experience as a Principal Investigator on research and has also acted as co-applicant for funded research projects that were successful completed and published in peer reviewed journals of international renown. He has experience in both quantitative and qualitative methods for data collection and analysis. Michael is member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Clinical Nursing and is an Associate Editor for BMC Palliative Care and reviews regularly for a range of high impact nursing and healthcare journals.

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Maria Brenner is Full Professor of Children's Nursing and Associate Dean for Global Engagement. She holds a PhD, MSc and BSc from UCD and is on the register of the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland for Children's Nurses, General Nurses and Nurse Tutors. She leads an interdisciplinary programme of research on technology and complex care and is the recipient of substantial national and international research funding. This includes TechChild, a 5-year project exploring the initiation of technology dependence, funded by the European Research Council. She collaborates widely internationally, including Gravitate Health, funded by the European Commission and the Innovative Medicines Initiative. She previously led the development of the first European standards of care for children with complex care needs, as part of the Models of Child Health Appraised (MOCHA) project (EU Horizon 2020 programme). She works with numerous international organisations and institutions on child health issues.

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Associate Professor Y. Sinem Uzar-Ozcetin, is associate professor in mental health nursing in the UCD School of Nursing, Midwifery, and Health System and Associate Dean for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI), first appointed in 2023. Since then she has chaired the School EDI committee. As Associate Dean, the aim is to develop an awareness of inequalities experienced, including but not limited to the 10 equality grounds of the university: Age, Civil status, Disability, Family status including carer status, Gender (including gender identity), Traveller community membership, Ethnicity (race, skin colour, nationality or ethnic origin), Religion, Sexual orientation, and Socio-economic-status; and to develop action plans to address such inequalities by raising awareness, challenging discrimination and encouraging attitude and behaviour change towards a more inclusive culture.

Dr Uzar Ozcetin is research active and contributing/ leading many national and international research projects. Generally, Dr Uzar Ozcetin`s research interests include cross-cultural mental health care, nursing education, workplace violence, and psycho-oncology including a specific focus on WV among nurses and nursing students, metacognitions, ruminations, resilience, posttraumatic growth, and cross-cultural awareness/sensitivity toward displaced individuals, individuals with cancer. Dr Uzar Ozcetin has completed theoretical and skills educations, over 250 hours supervisions in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) from an accredited association by Beck-institute. Related to her CBT background, she has provided therapy for many cancer survivors, nurses, and nursing students. Dr Uzar Ozcetin chaired as an assistant coordinator of Bologna process in the faculty for over 10 years, so she has experience in curriculum development and design at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. Again, she chaired as an assistant coordinator of Student Mobility Erasmus Program in the faculty for over 10 years, hence she has international collaborations and experience to develop bilateral agreements in E+. Dr Uzar Ozcetin is an Editorial Board member of Nurse Education Today since 2021. More recently she was invited and appointed as associate editor of the journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Nursing. Dr Uzar Ozcetin has also been contributing to peer-review processes of many international high-ranked/ quality journals as a reviewer.

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