olivia completed her bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering at trinity college dublin in 2023. during her fourth year, she joined dr. bruce murphy’s medical device design lab as an intern, contributing to the ‘Mitrdapt’ project, which focused on developing a device to treat patients with mitral valve regurgitation. olivia then went on to complete a master’s degree in biomedical engineering at trinity college, graduating with a first class honours and receiving a distinction for her thesis, entitled ‘understanding the factors that cause a leakage in a gastrointestinal tract anastomosis’. in this project, olivia investigated how magnets of varying strength and geometries influenced tissue compression, with the goal of informing device design and reducing the occurrence of anastomotic leakage. in september 2024, olivia commenced her phd with the biomedical imaging and biomechanics group. her current research focuses on characterising collagen content and structure in breast tissue using non-invasive imaging techniques, with the aim of identifying potential novel biomarkers to enhance the diagnosis of breast cancer.