Mary J. O'Connell is an evolutionary genomicist and Associate Professor at the

University of Nottingham The University of Nottingham is a public research university in Nottingham, England. It was founded as University College Nottingham in 1881, and was granted a royal charter in 1948. Nottingham's main campus (University Park Campus, Nottingh ...

. She is the Principal Investigator of the Computational & Molecular Evolutionary Biology Group in the School of Life Sciences at the University of Nottingham.

Education

O'Connell is from Banagher on the Shannon,

County Offaly County Offaly (; ) is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is part of the Eastern and Midland Region and the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster. It is named after the Ancient Ireland, ancient Kingdom of Uí ...

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

. She received her BSc in Biotechnology with Chemistry, and then

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in Computational Molecular Evolution in 2005, from the University of Maynooth. Her PhD explored heterogeneity in rates of change between human and mouse protein-coding genes, selective pressure variation and adaptation. Later she spent six months as a

Science Foundation Ireland Science Foundation Ireland (SFI; ) was a statutory body in Ireland. It was an agency of the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, with responsibility for funding oriented basic and applied research in th ...

postdoctoral researcher at

University College Cork University College Cork – National University of Ireland, Cork (UCC) () is a constituent university of the National University of Ireland, and located in Cork (city), Cork. The university was founded in 1845 as one of three Queen's Universit ...

, working on genomic imprinting, selection and conflict theory, before starting her own independent research group.

Lab Members

O'Connell's current team members are Dr. Vladimir Ovchinnikov, Dr. Charley McCarthy, Peter Mulhair, Alysha Taylor, David Orr, Ioannis Tsagakis, Georgios Nikolopoulos, Isabel Bird. O’Connell’s past lab members include Dr. Ann McCartney, Dr. Bede Constantinides, Dr. Karen Siu Ting, Katie Nicoll Baines, Natacha Chenevoy, Dr. Andrew E. Webb, Dr. Kathryn McRae, Dr. Ishani Sinha, Dr. Raymond J. Moran, Dr. Edel Hyland, Dr. Mark Lynch, Dr. Claire C. Morgan. Dr. Thomas A. Walsh, Katie Lee, Kabita Shakya, and Dr. Noeleen Loughran.

Career

O'Connell was appointed as lecturer and Principal Investigator at

Dublin City University Dublin City University (abbreviated as DCU) () is a Third-level education in the Republic of Ireland, university based on the Northside, Dublin, Northside of Dublin, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Created as the ''National Institute for Highe ...

(DCU) in 2005 when she established her independent research group. She became tenured at 27 and went on to be promoted to senior lecturer and then Deputy Head of Department at the School of Biotechnology, Dublin City University. In 2012, she became a Fulbright scholar awardee and spent a sabbatical year as

Fulbright The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States cultural exchange programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people ...

Visiting Professor at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

in the Department of Organismal and Evolutionary Biology and the

Museum of Comparative Zoology The Museum of Comparative Zoology (formally the Agassiz Museum of Comparative Zoology and often abbreviated to MCZ) is a zoology museum located on the grounds of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is one of three natural-history r ...

. She worked with Professor Scott Edwards and his group during her sabbatical. In September 2015, she left DCU to take up her "250 Great Minds University Academic Fellowship" at the

University of Leeds The University of Leeds is a public research university in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It was established in 1874 as the Yorkshire College of Science. In 1884, it merged with the Leeds School of Medicine (established 1831) and was renamed Y ...

. In July 2018, she was appointed as an Associate Professor in the School of Life Sciences at the University of Nottingham, where she is currently based.

Research

Her lab's research areas are primarily focused around four research topics -

phylogenomics Phylogenomics is the intersection of the fields of evolution and genomics. The term has been used in multiple ways to refer to analysis that involves genome data and evolutionary reconstructions. It is a group of techniques within the larger fields ...

, mechanisms of

protein evolution Molecular evolution describes how inherited DNA and/or RNA change over evolutionary time, and the consequences of this for proteins and other components of cells and organisms. Molecular evolution is the basis of phylogenetic approaches to descr ...

evolutionary theory Evolution is the change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, resulting in certai ...

and

adaptation In biology, adaptation has three related meanings. Firstly, it is the dynamic evolutionary process of natural selection that fits organisms to their environment, enhancing their evolutionary fitness. Secondly, it is a state reached by the p ...

. The research is applied to a broad spectrum of areas including understanding the origins of

eukaryotic The eukaryotes ( ) constitute the Domain (biology), domain of Eukaryota or Eukarya, organisms whose Cell (biology), cells have a membrane-bound cell nucleus, nucleus. All animals, plants, Fungus, fungi, seaweeds, and many unicellular organisms ...

life, speciation events and rapid evolutionary adaptations in polar bears, uncovering the evolution of sweet taste receptors in

hummingbirds Hummingbirds are birds native to the Americas and comprise the Family (biology), biological family Trochilidae. With approximately 366 species and 113 genus, genera, they occur from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, but most species are found in Cen ...

, identifying the molecular adaptions to the evolution of longevity in

bowhead whales The bowhead whale (''Balaena mysticetus''), sometimes called the Greenland right whale, Arctic whale, and polar whale, is a species of baleen whale belonging to the family Balaenidae and is the only living representative of the genus '' Balaena' ...

, resolving the

mammalian A mammal () is a vertebrate animal of the Class (biology), class Mammalia (). Mammals are characterised by the presence of milk-producing mammary glands for feeding their young, a broad neocortex region of the brain, fur or hair, and three ...

phylogeny, and teasing apart the role of

microRNAs Micro ribonucleic acid (microRNA, miRNA, μRNA) are small, single-stranded, non-coding RNA molecules containing 21–23 nucleotides. Found in plants, animals, and even some viruses, miRNAs are involved in RNA silencing and post-transcri ...

in the evolution of the

placenta The placenta (: placentas or placentae) is a temporary embryonic and later fetal organ that begins developing from the blastocyst shortly after implantation. It plays critical roles in facilitating nutrient, gas, and waste exchange between ...

. Along with her PhD students, Andrew Webb and Thomas Walsh, and later her postdoc Bede Constantinides, she wrote and published the software VESPA, a tool for accessible large-scale evolutionary and selective pressure analyses.

Professional activities

O'Connell is a council member for the

Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution The Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution (SMBE) is a scientific and academic organization founded in 1982 to support academic research in the field of molecular evolution. The society hosts an annual meeting, typically in June or July. It al ...

, and is an Associate Editor for both of the Society's Journals ( GBE and MBE). She was a co-organiser of the 2012 annual

meeting in Dublin, Ireland, which was attended by 1,300 delegates. She has organised and taught on

EMBO Embo or EMBO may refer to: *Embo, Taguig, a grouping of barangays in Taguig, Philippines * Embo (''Star Wars''), a ''Star Wars'' fictional character *Embo S.p.A., an Italian automotive manufacturer *Embo, Sutherland, a village in Highland, Scotland ...

advanced courses in

Phylogenetics In biology, phylogenetics () is the study of the evolutionary history of life using observable characteristics of organisms (or genes), which is known as phylogenetic inference. It infers the relationship among organisms based on empirical dat ...

and phylogenomics in Maynooth, Ireland (2004), Medellin, Colombia (2009), Erice, Sicily (2013) and Iquitos, Peru (2016) At the University of Leeds, along with Dr. Niamh Forde and Dr. Julie Aspden, O'Connell set up the Leedsomics research institute. The mission of "LeedsOmics" is to unify the large number of ‘omics’ researchers at the University of Leeds into a single community. It includes 38 research groups from a range of fields and runs an annual Research Symposium. In 2015, O'Connell gave a Tedx talk at Dublin City University on "How to survive in a changing world"

Awards and honours

* 2012 Fulbright Research Scholar Award * 2017 Elected as Fellow of the Linnean Society

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:OConnell, Mary Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Academics of Dublin City University Academics of the University of Nottingham Alumni of Maynooth University Irish geneticists People from Banagher, County Offaly Fellows of the Linnean Society of London Women evolutionary biologists British evolutionary biologists Scientists from County Offaly 21st-century Irish biologists 21st-century Irish women scientists Scholars and academics from County Offaly