Foundations of Data Science Winter Symposium 2026

For the seventh year, the (opens in a new window)Research Ireland Centre for Research Training (CRT) in Foundations of Data Science hosted its annual winter symposium at O’Reilly Hall in UCD on 14-15 January.  

The student-led event is organised by and for its cohorts of PhD and Masters students from each of the centre’s three partner institutions – University of Limerick, UCD and Maynooth University – and is also attended by supervisors, industry delegates and centre alumni. The symposium is a unique networking event to showcase the CRT’s research, which focuses on applied mathematics, statistics and machine learning to provide foundations for the algorithms of the future.

The centre recruited its first cohort of 27 doctoral students in September 2019 and has expanded steadily since then. The fifth and final PhD recruitment cycle in 2023 filled 128 full-time PhD studentships, selected from 2,284 applications spanning 96 countries. In 2025, the centre recruited its first MSc students, for accelerated advanced post-graduate training and development.

Opening the event, Professor Idris Eckley FLSW, Distinguished Professor of Statistics at Lancaster University, gave a keynote talk reflecting on his own career journey, describing it as a rewarding career for people who like tackling problems without clear questions or a clear path to the solutions.

Dr Koyel Majumdar, Senior Quantitative Analyst at Renaissance Re, gave the first of four alumni presentations, followed by Dr Matt Nagle, Senior Machine Learning Engineer at Analog Devices, Dr Aoife Hurley, Data Scientist at Coillte, Dr Prabhleen Kaur, Data Scientist at Microsoft and Dr Gabriel Rodrigues-Palma, Postdoctoral Researcher at Trinity College Dublin.

Dr Andrea Rau, Research Director, INRAE (National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment), France, delivered the second keynote talk, encouraging the students to “pull the thread” in their careers and follow where it takes them, reflecting on her own path from statistics to applied statistics to biostatistics to statistical genomics.

Supported by Research Ireland, ICT Skillnet Ireland and the three host institutions, the CRT for the Foundations of Data Science also benefits from co-funding and the active involvement of 15 Enterprise Alliance (EA) partners, who offer 12-week training placements for all PhD students. The students also benefit from international research placements during their 4 years in the programme.

To date, 45 CRT students have graduated, with a further 20 having completed their PhD vivas. Graduates have progressed to roles with several Enterprise Alliance partners, including Microsoft, Met Éireann, Hertz, Renaissance Re and University Hospital Limerick.

On the first day, current PhD students participated in the ‘Thesis in 3’ competition, presenting their research with only one slide in just three minutes – judged by a panel including Brian Nolan from Research Ireland, Professor Idris Eckley and Dr Andrea Rau.

The winners were Aoife Flood, Cormac Monaghan, Nahia Martinez Iturricastillo, all from Maynooth University, and Hannah Kane from UCD.

Centre co-director, prof Claire Gormley said: “The symposium provides the annual opportunity to showcase the breadth of research activity across the CRT's PhD students in UL, MU and UCD. This year's ‘Thesis in 3’ competition, delivered by final year PhD students, highlighted applied mathematics, statistics and machine learning research applied in areas from psychology, to materials, to cosmology.

“It also provided the students with the opportunity to network across cohorts, meet industry partners, hear from alumni and learn about career paths. This year we were delighted to also host students and faculty from STOR-i Centre for Doctoral Training at Lancaster University, which added to the event.

Wrapping up the symposium, award-winning science communicator Dr Niamh Shaw was the special guest speaker, with inspiring reflections from her scientific adventures and career journey to pursue her passion for making science accessible.