Award success for Wicklow professor
A UNIVERSITY academic living in County Wicklow has received the prestigious NovaUCD 2017 Innovation Award.
Professor Brian Caulfield who is Dean of Physiotherapy at University College Dublin was chosen for the award, in recognition of his successful commercialisation of research, undertaken at UCD’s School of Public Health, Physiotherapy and Sports Science. Professor Caulfield is a native of Arklow, and now lives in Enniskerry.
Over the last 10 years the focus of Professor Caulfield’s research programme has been on exploiting technological advances to enhance human performance, in the fields of connected health and sport, through wearable and mobile sensing measurement and intervention applications.
These applications are now opening up new avenues for human performance evaluation and enhancement in areas from elite sport to rehabilitation medicine to gerontology.
‘I am honoured to receive this prestigious University College Dublin Award and to follow in the footsteps of previous awardees. This Award reflects the importance of the role that the academic sector can play in developing and evaluating the next wave of technological advances that have the potential to transform our capacity to enhance human performance in health and sport. It also demonstrates the strategic importance of interdisciplinary and intersectoral collaboration as none of my research and com- mercialisation activities would have been possible without such collaboration,’ said Professor Caulfield. He added that the awards also recognises the huge commitment of his current and past research students who have worked closely with him over many years to develop a connected health research and innovation ecosystem at UCD, in Ireland and further afield.
The NovaUCD Innovation Award was established in 2004 to highlight University College Dublin’s commitment to innovation. The Award is presented annually to an individual, company or organisation or group in recognition of excellence in innovation or of success achieved in the commercialisation of UCD research or other intellectual activity.
Professor Andrew J. Deeks, UCD President paid tribute to Professor Caulfield.
‘I am delighted to present the NovaUCD 2017 Innovation Award to Professor Brian Caulfield. This Award recognises the quality and impact of his peer-reviewed research, his commitment and success in commercialising the resulting intellectual property, and his dedication to forging key strategic links with policy makers, clinicians, industry leaders, innovative start-ups and research groups to drive advances in the connected health field. This Award also recognises Brian as an innovation role model who combines excellence in teaching and research with a proven commitment to translating research outcomes into commercial applications to impact the lives of people.’