Principal Investigator
Dr. Ciara Greene
Ciara Greene is an Associate Professor in the UCD School of Psychology, where she is Deputy Head of School and Director of the Higher Diploma in Psychology. She graduated from Trinity College Dublin in 2005 with a BA (Hons) in Psychology and subsequently completed a PhD in Neuroscience in Trinity College Dublin in 2008. Ciara completed postdoctoral fellowships at in the Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge, and Imperial College London before taking up a faculty post in the School of Applied Psychology, University College Cork. She moved to UCD in 2014, where she conducts research on memory and attention, with a particular focus on false memory. Ciara is a Fulbright Scholar and is currently funded by the Irish Research Council, the Health Research Board and Science Foundation Ireland.
Email: ciara.greene@ucd.ie
Website: https://people.ucd.ie/ciara.greene
Current lab members
Dr Megan Reynolds
Megan earned her PhD from Queens University Belfast, where she investigated the impact of unwanted sexual experiences on psychological wellbeing. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Attention and Memory lab, where she investigates factors affecting misinformation susceptibility.
Email: megan.reynolds@ucd.ie
Alexandra Afroditi Asimakopoulou
Afroditi earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece and her MSc in Cognitive Psychology & Neuropsychology from the University of Kent, UK. She is currently studying for her PhD in Psychology. Her research investigates the role of emotion in susceptibility to fake news, and is funded by a Google Online Content Safety Scholarship from the Irish Research Council.
Maryanne Brassil
Maryanne graduated with a BA Psychology (First Class Hons) from University College Dublin in 2020. She is currently an PhD student supervised by Associate Professor Ciara Greene. Her research is on the topic of eyewitness memory performance following exposure to post-event misinformation. Specifically, her research investigates how individual differences in cognitive ability may influence susceptibility to eyewitness memory distortions resulting from misinformation. Maryanne is funded by government of Ireland postgraduate scholarship from the Irish Research Council.
Omar Aftab
Omar earned a BA in Applied Psychology from University College Cork. He is currently employed as a research assistant in the A&M lab.
Email: omar.aftab@ucd.ie
Former lab members
Dr Constance de Saint Laurent
Constance received her PhD in Social and Human Sciences from the University of Neuchâtel in 2018, and conducted postdoctoral work with the Swiss National Science Foundation. At UCD, she worked in the Attention and Memory lab on a project funded by the Health Research Board of Ireland. She currently works as a researcher in trustworthy technology at Accenture.
Dr Aisling Davies
Aisling received a BA (First Class Hons) in Applied Psychology from University College Cork in 2014. She completed her PhD at UCD under the supervision of Dr. Ciara Greene in 2021. Aisling’s work, which was funded by the Irish Research Council, concerns the phenomenon of ‘mindwandering’ and explores how different types of task-unrelated thought affect sustained attention and cognitive performance. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher on the Children's School Lives study at the UCD School of Education.
Email: aisling.davies@ucd.ie
Dr Toni Galligan
Toni graduated with a BA (Hons) in Psychology from UCD in 2012 and went on to complete an MSc in Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience in 2013 at Goldsmiths University, London. Toni is currently completing research as part of the Doctoral Programme in Clinical Psychology at UCD, under the supervision of Dr Ciara Greene. Toni’s research involves validating the ÉirPrVLT (English in Ireland adaptation of the Philadelphia Repeatable Verbal Learning Test) with older adults who have diagnosed memory disorders.
Email: toni.galligan@ucdconnect.ie
Dr Jose A. Rodas
Jose Rodas is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Psychology from the University of Guayaquil. He completed a clinical psychology training at the University of Guayaquil, a masters in health psychology at the University of Malaga and obtained his PhD at University College Dublin. His research interests include the role of executive functions in working memory and emotions.
Email: jose.rodas@ucdconnect.ie
Dr Holly Corboy
Holly completed her doctorate in ClinicalPsychology at University College Dublin in 2020. Holly's research involved developing new norms for the ÉirPrVLT (English in Ireland adaptation of the Philadelphia Repeatable Verbal Learning Test), a neuropsychological test designed to assess memory functioning in older adults. The ÉirPrVLT is based on the well-established California Verbal Learning Task and is culturally adapted for use in Ireland.
Email: holly.corboy@ucdconnect.ie
Dr Rachel Bates
Rachel completed her doctorate in in Clinical Psychology at UCD in 2020. Rachel's research examined the effects of suggestibility on performance in the ÉirPrVLT (English in Ireland adaptation of the Philadelphia Repeatable Verbal Learning Test).
Email: rachel.bates@ucdconnect.ie
Dr Denise Rogers
Denise completed her PhD in Clinical Psychology program at University College Dublin on the topic of attentional biases as a transdiagnostic processes in adult mental health under the supervision of Dr Ciara Greene. Denise completed her BA (Hons) in Applied Psychology at University College Cork in 2010 and subsequently went on to complete an MSc in Human Cognitive Neuropsychology at the University of Edinburgh in 2011. She honed her clinical and research skills working in London with adults with acquired brain injury, ADHD and chronic fatigue, in addition to young offenders, before moving back to Ireland to pursue her training in Clinical Psychology in 2016.
Email: denise.rogers@ucdconnect.ie
Dr Seán Ó Donnchadha
Seán graduated with a BA in psychology from University College Dublin in 2009, and earned his PhD in 2013. Seán completed his clinical training at UCD and was awarded a Doctorate in Psychological Sciences in 2016. His research was supervised by Dr. Ciara Greene and Dr. Jessica Bramham, and investigated the links between overweight/obesity and attention- deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). He is currently employed as a Clinical Psychologist at St. Vincent's Hospital, Melbourne, Australia.
Email: odonnchadha.sean@gmail.com
Dr Gillian Murphy
Gillian completed her PhD in University College Cork in 2016. Gillian’s research, funded by the Irish Research Council, focused on applying Load Theory of Attention to driving. Using a driving simulator to create virtual environments, Gillian tested the predictions of Load Theory in real-world situations. Gillian’s research has focused on the role of load in drivers’ inattentional blindness and deafness, reaction times to hazards and eyewitness memory for a road accident, resulting in both theoretical and applied implications. Gillian is also a Fulbright scholar, having visited Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York in 2015 to conduct EEG research on novice vs. expert drivers. She is currently an Assistant Professor at the School of Applied Psychology, University College Cork.
Email: gillian.murphy@ucc.ie