Who we are
UCD CSTAR, a University College Dublin (UCD) Research and CPD Centre, was founded with the support of the Health Research Board (HRB) by a group of academic/health researchers from UCD, Trinity College Dublin (TCD), University of Galway, University of Limerick (UL) and a number of other institutions. UCD CSTAR operates as a collaborative and consulting agency from the School of Public Health, Physiotherapy, and Sports Science (SPHPSS) at UCD.
Our Mission:
The mission of UCD CSTAR is to enhance the quality and increase the quantity of health research in Ireland. To achieve that, the Centre strives:
1) To collaborate with leading Irish research teams, and provide a research support environment for academics, state agencies, and charity organisations.
2) To develop effective training and education in study design, biostatistics and medical statistics, state-of-the-art statistical tools, and responsible research conduct across a broad range of applied fields.
Dublin CSTAR staff and affiliates:
Centre Staff
Dr. Ricardo Segurado is the Director of UCD CSTAR and a consultant biostatistician. He has a particular interest in longitudinal models, statistical genetics, and in developing statistical education amongst biological and clinical researchers.
Phoebe Evans is a part-time consultant biostatistician and trainer.
Carolyn Ingram is a public health researcher and current PhD candidate at UCD SPHPSS. Her doctoral research explores access to healthcare amongst individuals experiencing homelessness in Dublin. She simultaneously serves as an Education Technologist within SPHPSS and is a part-time Consultant Biostatistician within the Centre for Support and Training in Analysis and Research (CSTAR). Carolyn holds a Master of Public Health from the Bordeaux School of Public Health and a degree in Mathematics from the University of Washington, Seattle.
Katayoun Bahramian is the Centre Administrator and Research Manager. She coordinates consultations, marketing and event management.
Centre Collaborators
Prof. Akke Vellinga is an epidemiologist with a focus on infections and antibiotics. She holds a HRB Research Leader Award to set up the CARA network (caranetwork.ie), Collaboration to reduce Antimicrobial use and Resistance and identify opportunities for improvement and Awareness. The CARA network aims to provide an infrastructure where data from general practice can be uploaded, analysed and visualised in interactive dashboards. Akke is also the Irish lead for ECRAID (European Clinical Research Alliance on Infectious Diseases (ECRAID.eu)) and ValueDx (value-dx.eu), providing a platform to implement clinical trials in general practice to test treatments for new and current infections. She grew up in Antwerp, Belgium and moved to Ireland in 2005. Prior to joining the UCD, she was in the School of Medicine at the NUI Galway.
Dr. Carla Perrotta is an Associate Professor in Public Health with diverse research interests spanning Knowledge Synthesis, Implementation Science, Clinical Effectiveness, Primary Care and Patient Safety.
Prof. Cathal Walsh is the Professor of Biostatistics in the School of Medicine at TCD, having previously held the Chair of Statistics at UL. His research interests are in evidence synthesis and disease modelling, and he was part of the Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group, working within the Health Protection Surveillance Centre during the COVID-19 pandemic. He has been an advisor to the National Centre for Pharmacoeconomics on statistical methodology for Health Technology Assessment for over 15 years, and has been the trial statistician for clinical trials in stroke, dementia, depression and activity interventions.
Dr Garrett Greene is a Lecturer in Statistics with an interest in applications of statistics and machine learning in medicine and biology, and in particular modelling of digital health data, and computational neuroscience.
Dr. Mary Codd is a former Centre Director, an Associate Professor of Epidemiology & Biostatistics at the UCD SPHPSS and Associate Dean of Public Health. She is also Director of the Master of Public Health (MPH) Programme. As a member of the Executive Board of ASPHER (Association of Schools of Public Health of the European Region), Mary is the lead of the ASPHER Core Curriculum Programme.
Dr. Michael Salter-Townshend is a statistician specialising mainly in genetics and network analysis. His interests are in population genetics, recombination, polygenic risk scores, pedigrees and breeding, plus social network analysis. He develops and applies statistical models to both human and domestic and wild animal datasets.