Róisín Owens is a professor in the

Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, University of Cambridge The Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology (CEB) is one of the teaching and research departments at the University of Cambridge. The department trains undergraduate students and conducts original research at the interfaces between ...

and a

Fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned society, learned or professional society, p ...

Newnham College, Cambridge Newnham College is a women's constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1871 by a group organising Lectures for Ladies, members of which included philosopher Henry Sidgwick and suffragist campaigner Millicen ...

. Her research investigates new engineering technology for biological applications with a focus on organic bioelectronics, developing electroactive materials that can be used between physical transducers and soft biological tissues.

Education and early life

Owens is from

Glasnevin Glasnevin (, also known as ''Glas Naedhe'', meaning "stream of O'Naeidhe" after a local stream and an ancient chieftain) is a neighbourhood of Dublin, Ireland, situated on the River Tolka. While primarily residential, Glasnevin is also home to ...

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

. She earned a bachelor's degree in

Natural Sciences Natural science or empirical science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer ...

with a focus on

Biochemistry Biochemistry, or biological chemistry, is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology, a ...

Trinity College, Dublin Trinity College Dublin (), officially titled The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, and legally incorporated as Trinity College, the University of Dublin (TCD), is the sole constituent college of the Univ ...

in 1998. She completed her

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 ...

at the

University of Southampton The University of Southampton (abbreviated as ''Soton'' in post-nominal letters) is a public university, public research university in Southampton, England. Southampton is a founding member of the Russell Group of research-intensive universit ...

with a thesis, ''The BipA global regulator interacts with ribosomes''.

Career and research

She moved to

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

to work as a postdoctoral researcher on host-pathogen interactions of ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' in the department of Microbiology and Immunology with David Russell. Owens worked at Agave BioSystems in New York between 2005 and 2007. She then joined the lab Moonsoo Jin, developing ICAM-1 of

rhinovirus The rhinovirus (from the "nose", , romanized: "of the nose", and the ) is a Positive-sense single stranded RNA virus, positive-sense, single-stranded RNA virus belonging to the genus ''Enterovirus'' in the family ''Picornaviridae''. Rhinoviru ...

therapeutics. Owens won a

Marie Curie Maria Salomea Skłodowska-Curie (; ; 7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934), known simply as Marie Curie ( ; ), was a Polish and naturalised-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was List of female ...

Reintegration Grant. The project resulted in a novel

biosensor A biosensor is an analytical device, used for the detection of a chemical substance, that combines a biological component with a physicochemical detector. The ''sensitive biological element'', e.g. tissue, microorganisms, organelles, cell rece ...

for enteric pathways. In 2009 Owens joined Ecole des Mines de St. Etienne, where she was appointed to Professor and Head of Department in 2016. Owens began working in bioelectronics after a discussion with her husband, ''"I was a biologist specializing in infectious diseases, and he was an expert in physics and materials science ... this was how we came up with this new project together, combining biology and electronics"''. In 2014 she took a sabbatical at the

University of Thessaloniki The Aristotle University of Thessaloniki ( AUTh; ), often called the University of Thessaloniki, is the second oldest Tertiary education, tertiary education institution in Greece. Named after the philosopher Aristotle, who was born in Stagira (anc ...

. She was the Principal Investigator (PI) for a major

European Research Council The European Research Council (ERC) is a public body for funding of scientific and technological research conducted within the European Union (EU). Established by the European Commission in 2007, the ERC is composed of an independent Scientific ...

grant, ''Exploitation of Organic Electrochemical Transistors for Use in Biological Ionsensing'' in 2010. In 2015 Owens won a €150,000

proof of concept A proof of concept (POC or PoC), also known as proof of principle, is an inchoate realization of a certain idea or method in order to demonstrate its feasibility or viability. A proof of concept is usually small and may or may not be complete ...

grant from the

. In 2016 she won a

Consolidation grant. In 2017 Owens joined the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

. She is Principal Editor for Biomaterials, ''MRS Communications''. She serves on the advisory board of the

Wiley-Blackwell Wiley-Blackwell is an international scientific, technical, medical, and scholarly publishing business of John Wiley & Sons. It was formed by the merger of John Wiley & Sons Global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business with Blackwell Publish ...

''Advanced BioSystems and Journal of Applied Polymer Science''.

Awards and honours

Owens won the

Suffrage Science award The Suffrage Science award is a prize for women in science, engineering and computing founded in 2011, on the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day by the MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences (LMS). There are three categories of awar ...

in 2019, nominated by Rylie Green.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Owens, Roísín Living people Alumni of Trinity College Dublin People from Glasnevin Irish biochemists Women biochemists Irish women chemists 21st-century Irish chemists Academics of the University of Cambridge Year of birth missing (living people) Scientists from Dublin (city) 21st-century Irish women scientists