Our People
Say hello to the team who catalyse innovation and collaboration between industry, health, social care, and academia in Northern Ireland.
Caroline McEvoy
Chief Communications Officer
Caroline has more than 30 years’ experience as a journalist and news editor across Ireland, the UK and the USA.
She is also an accomplished photographer and video journalist, working with the BBC and ITV.
As a Strategic Communications Director for global organisations, Caroline has strengthened collaboration across government, academia, industry and healthcare, helping to build trust, support growth, enhance reputation and deliver measurable impact.
She holds a Master’s degree in Literature from Ulster University, a Diploma in Journalism from the Press Association and a Diploma in Management from Dublin Business School.
Sean O’Connor
Sean’s current role as Cluster Innovation Lead, is to provide ongoing support as part of the Innovate UK funded, Life and Health Sciences Launchpad. The launchpad is aimed at the advancement of healthcare solutions, and medical breakthroughs.
Sean has a background in Life and Health Sciences, and experience in the commercial, research and health service sectors. He holds a PhD in Health Sciences, and having trained as a healthcare professional, has worked extensively in clinical and non-clinical roles within various organisations. He has previously worked in quality assurance for a large healthcare provider, where his roles included developing evidence-based treatment pathways and digital resources to support occupational health systems for commercial organisations. These roles have also included development of continuous professional development programmes for health professionals and clinical scientists. His research background includes extensive work in digital health, including assessment of the usability, and acceptability of mobile health interventions for patients and healthcare providers, as well as the dissemination and implementation of such programmes in health systems. He also has expertise in research ethics and regulations, and sits on research funding committees, and a health Research Authority Ethics Committee.
Sean has a strong interest in fostering collaboration, and the promotion of innovation, adoption and spread to facilitate meaningful contributions to the Northern Ireland health innovation ecosystem.
Emma McCarley
Project Co-ordinator
Emma works to develop and deliver network building activities in medtech, diagnostics and biotech and to research and synthesise commercial data to provide evidence of HIRANI objectives.
She graduated from Ulster University with a BSc Human Nutrition degree including a Diploma in Professional Practice with placement practice in the health promotion sector.
Emma is passionate about promoting public health awareness and strengthening the life and health science ecosystem within NI.
Board Members
Richard Kennedy
Interim Chair of the Board
Global VP for Biomarker Development and Medical Director, Richard Kennedy is responsible for the development and delivery of clinical assays in our global clinical testing laboratories.
Richard graduated in medicine from Queen’s University Belfast in 1995. As a post-graduate he trained as a medical oncologist and received a PhD in Molecular Biology in 2004.
From 2004-2007 he worked as an Instructor in Oncology at Harvard Medical School, USA, where he identified novel biomarkers and drug targets for cancer treatment. This work was published in several high impact journals and the associated patent was in-licensed by a Boston-based start-up company in 2007.
In August 2007 he joined Almac where he has been involved in the design and international delivery of clinical trials using biomarkers on behalf of multiple large pharmaceutical companies.
In 2011 he also established a research group In Queen’s University Belfast focussed on various aspects of stratified medicine. He currently sits on the CR-UK new agents committee, the MRC Stratified Medicine Panel and the MATRIX NI Government science advisory panel.
Rebecca Todd
Non-Executive Director
Rebecca Todd (PhD, MBA) is a venture capital investor in early-stage life science and medical technology companies for Longwall Ventures. She for began venture investing in 2006 while at Oxford Capital, where she took responsibility for investments into healthcare and life science companies. She went on to become Director, Healthcare Ventures at Imperial Innovations (now part of IP Group). After a sabbatical break spent exploring South America in a campervan, she joined Longwall Ventures in 2017 to make and manage investments from Longwall’s third fund, a £75m Enterprise Capital Fund. Prior to becoming an investor, her earlier career was as a marketing consultant to pharmaceutical and life science technology companies. Rebecca has a PhD in Genetics from Nottingham University and an MBA from Oxford University.
Jonathan Patton
Non-Executive Director
Jonathan Patton had a long and extensive career at Senior Management and Chief Executive level in the private sector before transitioning into public service. His commercial experience across manufacturing, recruitment, logistics and sales and marketing has always been marked with innovation, quality improvement and customer focused development.
Having served in the public arena across Health and Justice in service user complaints, regulation and public protection he is currently Chair at South Eastern Health & Social Care Trust, Chair at Northern Ireland Confederation for Health & Social Care, Chair at Health & Social Care Chairs Forum, Board Member NHS Confederation and Committee Member Public Sector Chairs Forum.
In addition to this, he currently sits as a member of the Improvement & Transformation Advisory Board, Patient Safety Culture Steering Group and Commissioning Working Group.
A champion for volunteering, he is Chair at Community Rescue Service and a member of the Northern Ireland Advisory Committee at Sense.
Professor Ian Bruce
Founding Organisation Board Member
Professor Bruce is Pro Vice Chancellor, Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences at Queen’s University Belfast, an NIHR Senior Investigator Emeritus and Professor of Rheumatology at The University of Manchester.
He qualified in Medicine from Queen’s University Belfast in 1988 and carried out his clinical training in medicine and rheumatology in Northern Ireland, completing his MD Thesis in 1995. From 1996-1998 he was the Geoff Carr Lupus Fellow at the University of Toronto. He then moved to Manchester in 1998 and was appointed Professor of Rheumatology at the University of Manchester in August 2010, and an NIHR Senior Investigator in April 2013. From April 2017-Feb 2024 he was Director of the NIHR Manchester Biomedical Research Centre.
Professor Bruce also leads the British Isles Lupus Assessment Group (BILAG) Biologics Register; a cohort of >1700 patients with SLE treated with biologics in the UK.
Professor Cathy Harrison
Non-Executive Director
NI Chief Pharmaceutical Officer, Professor Cathy Harrison and her team are responsible for providing specialist advice on medicines and pharmaceutical issues to the minister, department and wider health service in Northern Ireland and for the development of policy relating to medicines optimisation prescribing and pharmacy practice.
Professor Jim McLaughlin
Founding Organisation Board Member
Professor James McLaughlin is the Director and co-founder of Ulster University’s Nanotechnology and Integrated-Bioengineering Centre (NIBEC). He is also currently heading up the £43M BCRD Centre for Digital Healthcare Technology-CDHT.
A Fellow of the Institute of Physics and the Irish Academy of Engineering, he was awarded an OBE for his services to Research and Economic-Development and a CBE in 2022 for Research and Education. He is a Senior Distinguished-Fellow and his world-leading Digital-Healthcare-Technology research addresses the integration of decision making algorithms with clinical sensing systems. This work ranges from nanotechnology-based sensors to applications in areas such as cardiac point-of-care-sensors and medical-diagnostics. He is a co-founder of various successful companies including Intelesens (former CTO/Dir), Heartscape, SiSaF (former CTO/Director) and the initial phases of Heartsine (consultant).
Professor Sir Ian Greer
Board Senior Advisors
Professor Sir Ian Greer has been President and Vice-Chancellor of Queen’s University Belfast since August 2018. He has extensive experience of university innovation driving regional economic growth, including cross-sector developments such as the Northern Health Science Alliance, a collaboration of eight Universities and NHS partners, and is the cofounder of the Health Innovation Research Alliance for NI.
He is a strong advocate for University social responsibility including widening participation. He leads the innovation pillar of the Belfast Region City Deal, driving innovation in key sectors for the local economy – creative industries, health innovation, data science & analytics, and advanced manufacturing. He is currently President of Universities Ireland, promoting collaboration across the island.
Professor Liam Maguire
Board Senior Advisors
Professor Liam Maguire is the Pro Vice-Chancellor Research at Ulster. He joined Ulster University as a lecturer in 1994 and became a Professor of Computational Intelligence in 2007. Liam has been Executive Dean of the Faculty of Computing, Engineering and the Built Environment since 2016. Previously he held a number of senior positions at Ulster such as Head of School and Director of the Intelligent Systems Research Centre.
Liam is the NI representative on the National Council for Professors and Heads of Computing committee. He has recently been invited to join an Invest NI Board Sub-Group on Digital Innovation and is the university representative on the Belfast Innovation partnership and has a leading role in Ulster’s projects in the two City Deals.
Professor Helen McCarthy
Board Senior Advisors
Professor McCarthy is the first NI Chief Scientific and Technology Adviser she is also chair the newly formed NI Science & Technology Advisory Network.
Professor McCarthy is currently Chair of Nanomedicine in the School of Pharmacy at Queen’s University. After 10 years of research on novel delivery systems for vaccines Helen spun out her technology into pHion Therapeutics. She was CEO for six years and secured almost £10million in funding from Innovate UK. During this time, she won INVENT NI and the All-Ireland Seedcorn Awards.
Olivia Farnan
Head of Finance & Operations
Olivia Farnan is a Chartered Accountant with experience across the banking sector, civil service, and business management. As Head of Finance & Operations at HIRANI, she is responsible for finance, governance, compliance, and operational management, helping ensure the organisation delivers its programmes effectively and supports its members and partners.
