Research Career: 2020- present: Established Professor in Biomedical Engineering

2016- 2020: Personal Professor in Biomedical Engineering2014- 2016: Lecturer in Biomedical Engineering, College of Engineering and Informatics, NUI Galway

2009- 2014: SFI Stokes Lecturer: College of Engineering and Informatics, NUI Galway

2007- 2009: Lecturer: School of Engineering Sciences, University of Southampton, UK

2005- 2007: Lecturer (Fixed term): Dept of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering, NUI Galway

2004- 2005: Postdoctoral Researcher: Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, USA

Professor Laoise McNamara is a Personal Professor in Biomedical Engineering at the National University of Ireland, Galway. She established the Mechanobiology and Medical Device Research group at NUI Galway in 2009, which is currently comprised of 14 researchers. The MMDRG research group (www.mechanobiology.ie) use multidisciplinary approaches to understand mechanobiology and how this process contributes to bone development and osteoporosis. They have developed novel multiphysics and multiscale computational modelling techniques and have applied these methods to derive an understanding of the mechanical stimuli that bone cells experience in vivo in healthy and osteoporotic bone tissue. Her research group have uncovered changes in bone mechanobiology during osteoporosis. Her research has been applied to understand the role of mechanical stimulation in bone regeneration and she develops in vitro tissue regeneration strategies that exploit mechanobiological responses to overcome challenges in the field of bone tissue engineering. Professor McNamaras research is informing the generation of novel therapeutic approaches for osteoporosis. Professor McNamara collaborates with Stryker, Boston Scientific and Medtronic applying her expertise in computational and experimental biomechanics to the pre-clinical assessment of surgical and minimally invasive medical devices. Professor McNamara was awarded an Irish Research Council (IRC) Laureate Award in 2018, the SFI Investigators Grant in 2015 and a European Research Council Starting Independent Researcher Award in 2011 along with various other Health Research Board, SFI and Irish Research Council funding. She has been awarded the Bone and Joint Decade New Investigator Award by the Orthopaedic Research Society, and the Harold B. Frost Young Investigator Award by the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research (ASBMR). She has published more than 70 research articles in various high Impact Factor journals; PNAS, European Cells and Materials, the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, Bone, Tissue Engineering Part A and the Biophysical Journal, among many others. She is a reviewer for over 20 peer-reviewed international journals. She has also acted as a Royal Academy of Engineering (UK) reviewer for the Irish Research Council for Science and Engineering Technology (IRCSET) Postdoctoral Fellowships scheme. Professor McNamara a member of the Executive board and Platform Lead for the Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) funded Centre for Research in Medical Devices (CURAM) and is the Vice Dean for Recruitment and Internationalisation in the College of Engineering and Informatics at NUI Galway.

The primary objective of the research in Professor McNamaras group is to delineate the normal mechanosensory and signalling mechanisms of bone cells. The secondary objective is to determine whether bone tissue mechanics or mechanobiology are impaired during osteoporosis. The final objective is to develop in vitro approaches that can enhance bone tissue regeneration and thereby advance treatment of bone pathologies. The research expertise in Professor McNamaras group incorporates experimental and computational techniques including micromechanical testing, finite element modelling and theoretical mechano-regulation theories. In addition her group uses in vitro cell culture, advanced microscopy and immunohistochemistry techniques to characterise bone cell biology. Using such methods we focus on: Mechanical properties of bone tissue during osteoporosis Bone mineral composition during osteoporosis Identifying the noncollagenous components of bone tissue during disease Identifying bone cell mechanotransduction machinery in vivo and in vitro Characterising bone cell responses to their mechanical environment in vitro Bone mechanobiology during disease Developing novel mechanobiology-based approaches to bone tissue regeneration. In addition to these studies Professor McNamara has research collaborations with Stryker Instruments and Boston Scientific. Studies with Stryker Instruments aim to advance understanding of the mechanical and thermal properties of bone and cutting tool materials during surgical cutting procedures. Studies with Boston Scientific aim to advance understanding of transcatheter bioprostheses using experimental approaches and computational modelling

Medical Implant and Device Design (ME421)Biomechanics (ME416)Introduction to Biomedical Engineering (ME218)