Sarah Gilgunn awarded Chancellor’s Medal for outstanding postgraduate student

Congratulations to Sarah Gilgunn who has been awarded the Dublin City University Chancellor’s Medal for achieving outstanding academic success linked to considerable industrial experience.

Sarah commenced her work for a Ph.D. in 2011 under the supervision of Professor Richard O’ Kennedy in the School of Biotechnology. The research was part of a multi-institutional collaboration, funded by the Irish Cancer Society, which looked at improving current approaches for the detection of prostate cancer.

Throughout her career to date Sarah has published extensively, presented at numerous national and international conferences and has won several science communications awards.

In 2014, Sarah was awarded a prestigious Short-Term Fellowship from the European Biology Organization (EMBO) to work at Monash, one of the leading Universities in Australia. Her contributions to healthcare have also been recognised by DCU’s Faculty of Science and Health and in 2015 she was named ‘Outstanding Graduate Researcher 2014-2015’.

Since completing her PhD Sarah has commenced work in the Protein Oncology Department at Immunicore Ltd, an Oxford-based biotechnology company, and is directly translating the skills she obtained in DCU in an effort to develop novel cancer biologics.

Colette McDonagh, Dean of the Faculty of Science and Health, praised Sarah for her success and contribution to the University:

“The productive outcomes of Sarah’s collaborations throughout her PhD highlight her ability to work efficiently and co-operatively with others, and to generate highly significant results.

It is clear from her achievements that she is a very gifted researcher, who is incredibly hardworking and enthusiastic. However, she has combined all of this with great dedication to help others and to ensure that her outputs are used to improve people’s lives.”