Dr April Hargreaves completed her doctorate in neuropsychology and genetics with Trinity College Dublin, where her research focused on the neuropsychological/ cognitive profile of schizophrenia risk variants identified in genome wide association studies. Further research investigated psychological therapies for psychosis, with a particular interest in remediation of cognitive deficits in schizophrenia, using cognitive remediation therapy. More recently, Dr Hargreaves led an investigation of the role of CoQ10 in cognition and fatigue for patients with Schizophrenia, and currently her research is focused on the stigmatisation of psychosis in Ireland and internationally.

Dr Hargreaves has published widely in the field, including 34 peer reviewed research articles and two books as Editor; the first titled Co-EnzymeQ10: From Fact to Fiction and the second titled Schizophrenia: Triggers and Treatments.

Dr Hargreaves currently holds the position of Vice-Dean of Undergraduate studies and Associate Professor of Psychology in the School of Business at National College of Ireland, where she is also a member of Academic Council.

Dr. David Mothersill is Programme Director and lecturer in Psychology at National College of Ireland and Co-Director of SAMI. David was awarded a PhD from Trinity College Dublin in 2014 and went on to lecture in National University of Ireland Galway, where he co-developed the successful MSc in Clinical Neuroscience in 2016.

David’s research uses neuroimaging and cognitive testing to better understand social cognition in mental health conditions such as schizophrenia. This research has led to 36 peer-reviewed papers in the top scientific journals in the world, including Nature (impact factor 49.96), and over €100,000 in grant funding from the Irish Research Council, Royal Irish Academy, and ESTHER Ireland. David has presented this research at conferences around the world, including Kyoto, Japan, and Oxford University.

His first app, cTOM, a test for measuring social cognition in research studies, was released on the Apple App Store earlier this year.

Ger Loughnane is Assistant Professor in Statistics on a number of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in National College of Ireland. He holds a BA in Computer Science (University College Dublin), a HDip in Psychology (Trinity College Dublin) and a PhD in Neuroscience (Trinity College Dublin). He gained further academic experience as a postdoctoral researcher on human decision making in Monash University Melbourne, Trinity College Dublin and University College Dublin. Most recently, Ger had worked in United Healthcare/Optum as a Senior Data Scientist, applying state of the art machine learning techniques to actuarial data.

Ger’s current research focuses on human decision making, using behavioural and neuroimaging techniques to discover the neural substrates of how we integrate perceptual and value-based information to arrive at decisions. An adjacent goal of this research is to aid in the understanding, diagnosis and treatment of attentional disorders such as Unilateral Neglect. This has led to a number of insights on how the human brain performs these seemingly simple tasks. Ger has published these findings in several high-profile journals such as Current Biology, eLife, and the Journal of Neuroscience.

Gabriela Grasso graduated with a BA (Hons) Degree in Psychology from NCI in 2021. Her keen interest in gaining further practical experience in the field of psychology let her to become a research assistant with SAMI, where she co-authored with the directors of the lab a paper researching stigma around and attitudes towards certain mental health conditions. 

Gabriela's areas of interest in are Personality Disorders, Cyberpsychology and mental health and well-being.  

Hau Nguyen is an alumnus of NCI, with a first-class honours degree in Psychology. He was awarded with the Dean's Academic Excellence Award for 3 consecutive years during his studies. Hau has actively been working as a research assistant at NCI for the past year, including contributing to several publications.

He joins SAMI lab as he prepares for his Master's study in Applied Behaviour Analysis at Trinity College, Dublin.

E Qing Kee graduated with first-class honours from NCI in 2022, having received a Dean’s award for academic achievement during her time at the college. Her final year project researched the factors affecting academic stress, including a comparison of student stress levels in Ireland and Malaysia.

E Qing is now undertaking her MSc in Applied Clinical Neuropsychology at Trinity College, Dublin, as well as gaining practical skills and experience as a research assistant in NCI’s SAMI lab.

Lucy Graham is currently in her final year of the honours degree programme in Psychology at NCI. Having secured a 1.1 each year so far, Lucy was honoured to be included on the Dean’s List for academic achievement in 2020/21. She appreciates the opportunity to gain practical experience as a research assistant at SAMI lab.

Lucy’s particular area of interest is neuropsychology and she intends to pursue a master’s degree in that field in the future.