TCD’s School of Psychology hosts HRB NEPTuNE’s Study Day

Dr Elizabeth Nixon and NEPTuNE scholar, Chelo del Rosario were host to NEPTuNE’s most recent Study Day that was held in TCD on Tuesday, December 3rd 2019. Chelo was joined by fellow scholars Tim Hurley, Megan Dibble, Fiona Quirke and Megan Dibble for another series of workshops that would provide insight into the variety of disciplines that are included on the NEPTuNE programme.

The day began with a presentation from Professor Eleanor Molloy who described how the NIMBUS, GEMINI, FIREFLY and UNICORN programmes overlap with the NEPTuNE programme and its five projects (CRADLE, COHESION, SERENdiPITY, NEON and PANDA). Marie Slevin, consultant psychologist at the National Maternity Hospital, followed with a very interesting presentation on ‘Assessing Developmental Milestones in Infancy and Early Childhood’. This session gave scholars a very good insight into the different Bayley scales of Infant development and what it and other scales of development measure in terms of infant development. She also brought along the Bayley Scales Development kit which consists of a variety of developmental toys and games used to assess infants’ motor and cognitive skills.

After lunch, our five NEPTuNE scholars made presentations which gave us an update on their research projects. Fiona Quirke used her presentation opportunity to run through the presentation that she would make later in the week at the HRB TMRN Symposium. All presentations were very impressive.

We were delighted to welcome Jackie O’Leary from UCC to present a session on ‘Consent and Ethics’. Since the advent of GDPR in particular, this topic is of relevance and interest to all who were present. Its relevance was particular to our five NEPTuNE scholars as their projects engage with data that is collected from patients. Jackie’s presentation was very engaging and she gave very good examples of good and bad practice of consenting patients.

The Study Days present a great opportunity for the scholars to convene as a group and to hear of the successes and challenges in each of their projects. We’re looking forward to more Study Days in 2020!