Dr. Martin O’Halloran is Director of the Translational Medical Device Lab at NUI Galway, the first medical device lab in Ireland to be embedded in a regional hospital and co-located with a clinical trials facility. Dr. O’Halloran is also a non-executive director of the BioInnovate Programme (awarded IMDA’s Best Academic MedTech Programme in Ireland 2016) based at NUI Galway. Originally qualifying as an engineer, he re-trained in clinical research to ensure his lab-based research could have a clear and tangible impact on patient care. In 2011, he was the youngest-ever successful co-proposer of a European COST Action (entitled "MiMED"), and is now leading a network of over 180 medical device researchers from 24 countries, focused on the clinical translation and commercialisation of medical devices in Europe. The quality of his research has been recognised both nationally and internationally, and in the last 4 years was awarded: Engineers Ireland Chartered Engineer of the Year 2014, SFI’s Early Career Researcher of the Year 2016, and the IRC’s inaugural Researcher of the Year 2017. He has also secured 4 grants from the European Research Council, one each year from 2014-2018, and currently leads a team of 25 researchers developing a wide range of diagnostic and therapeutic technologies. Through his medical device work, he has been co-inventor on 7 patents, two of which have already been licensed to Irish medical device companies.