Academic biography

Ronan O’Toole is an Associate Professor in Biomedical Sciences in the School of Biotechnology. He was previously Associate Professor in Biomedical Sciences at La Trobe University, Senior Lecturer in Microbiology at the University of Tasmania, and Lecturer in Clinical Microbiology at Trinity College Dublin. He has more than 20 years post-PhD experience researching infectious diseases at institutes that also include Imperial College London and Johns Hopkins University. As a Principal Investigator, his research interests are in the complementary areas of pathogen genomics and epidemiology as they relate to human health and illness. His work applies technologies in next-generation sequencing and computational biology to map the origin and spread of healthcare- and community- acquired infections and detect the acquisition of antibiotic resistance. Further research integrates biostatistics to ascertain the contribution of host and environmental risk factors to the incidence of infection and disease.