rockford manor presentation school...welcome to rockford manor school’s “inspiring minds”...

Rockford Manor

Presentation School

“Inspiring Minds”

Careers Conference

March 8th, 2018 (International Women’s Day)

“A Christian environment where teaching and learning

nurture the personal development of every student”

Welcome to Rockford Manor School’s “Inspiring Minds” Careers Night. It is

the first time in many years that this event has taken place and we are delighted

that so many people have agreed to take part.

It is often difficult for students to decide what they would like to do after

school. Young people today are more likely to change careers a number of

times throughout their working lives than ever before. With this in mind, we

believe it is very important to expose students to a wide variety of career

options as early as possible in Secondary school.

The many professionals representing a diverse range of careers this evening

provide an excellent opportunity for students to learn about different careers

and the pathways they may take to pursue them.

I would particularly like to thank all of the professionals who have taken the

time to join us this evening. Students are encouraged to take advantage of

this fantastic opportunity to ask questions, explore their options and reflect

on the many possibilities open to them.

Finally, best wishes for an entertaining, informative and inspiring evening

and many thanks to everyone involved in the organisation of this event.

Liz Caffrey

Peter Cosgrove

Dr. Julie Broderick

Biography of Participants

The future of work – “the key skills students need to

develop in the future”.

Peter Cosgrove holds a BComm and a MBS from UCD.

He is a director with CPL, the largest recruitment and

outsourcing consultancy in Ireland and founder of the

Future of Work Institute. He is a regular contributor to the

national media on areas of skills, talent, diversity, and the

future of work. Peter is on the steering committee of the

30% club which promotes gender diversity and on the

board of the mental health charity Aware. He is also the

current chairman of Blackrock Athletic Club.

Dr. Julie Broderick is a physiotherapist and lecturer in

Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. She worked for a

number of years as a physiotherapist before moving to

the university setting. Her research and clinical

interests are in the areas of cardio-respiratory, oncology

and mental health. She is supervising a number of

projects which study the effect of exercise in people

with chronic (long-term diseases) and how technology

can help to encourage people with chronic disease to be

more physically active.


Mr Edward Dervan

Mr Edward Dervan: MB BCh BAO, MSc, MD, MRCophth,

FRCSI (Ophth), Consultant Ophthalmologist at the Mater

Misericordiae University Hospital, Bons Secours Hospital,

Dublin and Mater Private Hospital, Dublin. His subspecialty

interests are glaucoma and cataract surgery. He qualified as a

doctor from University College Dublin in 1998. He

completed his ophthalmic surgical training in Ireland and

was awarded fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons in

Ireland (Ophthalmology) in 2013. He also completed an

advanced surgical fellowship in Perth, Australia specialising in anterior segment disease, focusing primarily on glaucoma

and complex cataract surgery. He previously worked as a Consultant

Ophthalmologist in Perth before accepting a position as Consultant

Ophthalmologist specialising in glaucoma at the Mater Misericordiae University

Hospital in 2015. His research interests include understanding the basic science of

glaucoma, improving the clinical outcomes and the provision of services to patients

with glaucoma. He was awarded a research medical doctorate from University

College Dublin for his research on pseudoexfoliation glaucoma.

Conor Studied Science at NUI Galway and graduated in

2014 with a degree in Zoology. Since then he has been

working in the Aquaculture (Fish Farming) industry and

is currently working as hatchery manager for Keywater

Fisheries in Co. Sligo where they breed and grow Perch

for the Swiss market. Conor is currently undertaking a

Masters degree in Civil Engineering through NUI Galway

where he is studying the efficiencies of fish farms. In

September this year he will also start a Masters in

Conor Behan Business and Biotechnology in UCD and he hopes to

move his career into the Biotechnology industry.

Laura Mc Loughlin

Jane O’Hara

Grace Lawlor


Laura Mc Loughlin is the owner of a multi award winning

skin and beauty salon located in Blackrock, which will be

10 years old this December. With 14 years in the beauty

industry, Laura has changed her beauty background into a

more business background employing 12 staff members at

present and currently recruiting for more. Whilst battling

her illness, Multiple Sclerosis, the last 5 years, she doesn’t

think entrepreneur life should stop when it throws a curve

ball.

Jane holds a PhD in biology, in which she studied how

breast cancer cells respond to drug treatments. After

completing this degree at the Royal College of

Surgeons in Ireland, she carried out further cancer

research in a lab in Vancouver, Canada. Jane then

returned to Ireland to work in science communication

and education of people young and old, at Blackrock

Castle Observatory in Cork. She now works with

school teachers to enhance their professional

development in technology at Trinity College Dublin.

Grace runs the CodePlus programme in Trinity College

Dublin which is an ongoing research project seeking to

explore the reasons for female under representation in

Computer Science at University level. CodePlus works

with girls schools to teach students and teachers coding,

computational thinking and to provide opportunities for

girls to explore careers in CS. Grace holds a B.Ed having

worked as a primary school teacher before studying

Computer Science and Education at Trinity College

Dublin (M.Sc) and is currently studying for a Ph.D in the

School of Computer Science and Statistics.


Alison Gandola

Lisa Cusack

Alison Gandola holds a BSc in Midwifery from

University College Dublin. She is Registered Midwife

working in the Labour Ward in the National Maternity

Hospital, Holles Street. After completing her Leaving

Certificate in Rockford Manor Alison worked in retail,

as a Youth Worker, Childcare assistant and as a Special

Needs Assistant. Inspired by working with and caring

for people Alison studied Nursing Studies in Dun

Laoghaire Further Education Institute where her results

ensued a place for her in UCD, where she graduated

with first class honors in 2017.

Lisa took her first flying lesson at the age of 13, and took

inspiration from this to set about planning a career in

aviation. She graduated from DCU with an honours

degree in Applied Physics and gained employment as a

flight dispatcher in Dublin Airport. With lengthy costs

involved to fund flying lessons, Lisa set up a cupcake

business, where she baked and sold over 10,000 cupcakes

to fund her private pilot’s license. Having completed the

first part of her training, she was selected as 1 of 12 out of

3000 candidates as a cadet pilot, by Aer Lingus. She is

now a qualified pilot, flying the Airbus 320 daily across

Europe. The start of the summer sees her moving on to

the much larger Airbus 330 and flying to America. Lisa’s

next ambition is to achieve her ultimate dream of

becoming a Captain for Aer Lingus.

Phoebe Collison

Mark Kedney


Phoebe Collison is a Trinity College scholarship graduate

with a B.A. in Business, Economic and Social Studies and

M.Sc. in International Management. She also holds a

Diploma in International Business Development from the

Irish Management Institute and is a published author from

her research into the role of Chinese foreign direct

investment in Ireland. She has held a number of

Commercial, Product and User Experience roles within

the mobile technology industry in both the UK and

Ireland and is currently working as a Digital Insights

Analyst at Travelport Digital, an app development

company for travel brands, based in Dublin

Mark holds an MSc in Strategic Procurement and is the

Procurement Manager with Bord Bia - The Irish Food

Board. Mark is a procurement, supply chain and

management professional with more than 30 years

experience. This experience was gained working for

national and international, private and public

organisations in manufacturing, telecommunications

and the health and food sectors. Mark was also a Judge

for the National Procurement Awards in 2012 and

2013. Marks role helps organisations to increase value,

reduce costs, perform process analysis and implement

improvements, manage projects, prepare, analyse and

award tenders, and negotiate contracts.


Karla Zambra

Moya Doyle

Karla Zambra graduated from DIT with a first class

honours degree in Media Arts with French. She

specialised in radio in her final year and her radio

documentary “A Little Grey Matter” won Newstalk’s

Emerging Voices competition. Karla started her career at

City Channel where she was part of the IFTA nominated

news team and also produced and presented a weekly

movie review show. Since then she has worked on a wide

variety of programmes for RTÉ and TV3. She is currently

an assistant producer on Ireland’s Got Talent.

Moya Doyle is a Senior Occupational Therapist (OT)

working for the HSE in Primary Care in Dublin South

City. She worked for 22 years in Canada and has

extensive experience working with clients with

neurological conditions and traumatic brain injury. Since

returning to Ireland in 2014 she joined the primary care

OT service and her area of clinical interest is in Dementia.

Moya completed a Dementia Champion course with DCU

in 2016 and is a Dementia Awareness Facilitator through

DemPath (St. James’s Hospital). Together with her

colleague, Katie Barry, Senior OT, she developed a

Community OT Clinical Care Pathway for clients with

Dementia which is being shared nationally.

Nicola Flood


Nichola holds a BA hons degree in Training & Education

coupled with a dip in nutritional coaching. After

completing this degree within NUI Galway, she became

the Head Of Training and Education for Irelands largest

pharmacy group. Here she introduced the Training

department and developed their curriculum for 1000 staff

members. Through her career within the pharmacy sector

and her passion for health and nutrition she gained a dip

in Nutritional Coaching here she designed and developed

the Change your health direction programme for Lloyds

Pharmacy. After 17 years within the Training Education field she decided to turn her passion into her

career and is now the owner of The Queen Of Health.

Helen Tuffy studied intellectual disability nursing in St

Joseph’s Hospital Clonsilla where she qualified in 1996.

She started work as a staff nurse in Carmona services

Glenageary (St John of God). After a years’ experience

under her belt she moved to New York to work as a

medical counsellor & health care specialist for 2 years for

the largest learning disability agency in NY state.

Children’s nursing followed with a postgraduate diploma

from UCD in 2003 and a nursing career in Temple St

Children’s University Hospital since. She completed her

BsC in Nursing leadership and management in 2004. With

posts in surgical nursing and education, Helen is now the

Cleft Clinical Services Coordinator at the hospital.

Helen Tuffy

Ciara qualified with a Masters in Dramatherapy

from NUI Maynooth. She is now employed by the

School Completion Programme in Finglas to work

with young people who are at risk of leaving

school early. Ciara, a qualified mindfulness

facilitator teaches teachers a mindfulness for teens

programme in the schools that she works in. Ciara

has worked for the Gaiety School of Acting on

their Outreach Programmes where she has

provided workshops on communication skills and

confidence building and on their “Breathe”

programme, a positive mental health workshop for

secondary school students and their teachers and

parents. Ciara also teaches for the Academy of

Dramatic Arts in Meath and teaches Mindfulness

privately. Ciara has also had her own plays

performed in Cork, Meath and at The New

Theatre in Dublin.

Ciara Cassoni


Niamh Haskins

Francisco De Sebastian

Niamh was awarded with an honours degree (2.1) in a

Bachelor of Arts -Journalism, where she studied an

array of subjects including online, print and broadcast

media, as well as writing a thesis examining how the

public interpret images of female athletes output by the

media. After completing this degree at Dublin Institute

of technology, she worked in many areas in the field

and was hired by DIT and Campus.ie as editor running

a newspaper for over 13,000 students across Dublin

and a website with over 100,000 views per day. Niamh gained incredible experience on a six-week

internship with RTE Radio (News at one) and now

works as a freelance graphic designer and writer with

both VIP Magazine and the Gazette Group, along with

running Campus.ie.

Francisco holds a Bachelor Degree in Business

Administration. He started his career in the Marketing

department of France Telecom in Spain, before the

www existed. Since then his career has been linked to

the IT Industry in Spain with different management

positions. Two years ago, he moved to Dublin with his

family to lead a sales team in LinkedIn that helps

companies to sell more efficiently by using better the

digital channels.


Maria Mc Loughlin

Maria McLaughlin has been working as Manager of

programmes in international development with Plan

International since March 2017. She has been working in

technical advice, research and programme management in

long term development work in Africa and Asia for almost

15 years. She specialises in youth and women’s economic

empowerment and enterprise development. Before moving to

West Africa in 2006, Maria managed youth projects in

Ireland and London, and was a strategy advisor to local

government and public services in London. Maria has a

BA(hons) in Peace and Conflict Studies from University of

Ulster, and a Masters in Development and Anthropology

from London School of Economics.

Des is the Chief Financial Officer at a financial services

group in Dublin. Des is responsible for the day to day

running of the finance department, which includes

financial reporting, planning and record-keeping,

managing the financial risks and the IT function of the

Group. Des studied at NUI Galway where he completed

a BA in Legal Science and Economics and continued his

studies in DCU where he completed a professional

diploma in accountancy. Des joined the accountancy and

advisory firm Deloitte in 2007 where he qualified as a

chartered accountant and has since held a number of

positions ranging from finance to operational risk.

Des Mclean

Biography of Participants David Caffrey began his film & tv career with various

production roles on b-movies with Roger Corman. Short

films, CONNIVERS, BANTAMS and BOLT caught the eye

of the industry, resulting in a move to the feature film arena

with DIVORCING JACK for Scala Productions then onto

the 18th Century Mini-series ARISTOCRATS for

BBC/WGBH. ON THE NOSE, a comedy feature for

Subotica/Universal and GRAND THEFT PARSONS for

Swipe Films/Lionsgate followed. Since then work has

alternated between commercials and television drama; the

latter including series one of LINE OF DUTY for

BBC/World productions, 5 Seasons of LOVE/HATE for

RTE/Octagon and LUCKY MAN for SKY/Carnival. More

recently he completed the full first season of PRIME

SUSPECT 1973 for ITV/NOHO and the latest series of

PEAKY BLINDERS for BBC/Tiger Aspect/CM Production

David Caffrey

Fiona O’Sullivan


Fiona studied Physics, Biology, Home economics, and

French in secondary school. She then went on to study

science in Trinity where the core subjects for 1st and 2nd

year were Biology, Chemistry, Geology and Maths. In

third year Fiona decided to specialise in Immunology.

This is the study of the immune system and examines

ways in which diseases can overcome the immune system

and ways in which our body tries to defend against

disease at a cellular level. During her time in Trinity

Fiona completed two summer internships in laboratories

in other universities, one in UCD and one in UCC. After graduating in 2014 Fiona decided to continue in

research and decided to do a Ph.D. in Epidemiology.

This is the study of population health and how certain

factors can affect health outcomes in the population.

This involved examining associations between certain

factors and diseases using statistics. Fiona’s project

was based on vitamin D and UVB and the risk and

survival of oesophageal and gastric cancer. This project

involved examining vitamin D levels in a large

population of Irish adults and using data from

European Space Agency (ESA) satellites to measure

UVB levels over Ireland. These measures were then

used to determine if the general population has a lower

risk of developing oesophageal and gastric cancer if

they had higher vitamin D concentrations or if they had

been exposed to higher UVB doses.


Grace Lawlor

Grace completed a one-year course in Hairdressing and

Beauty therapy in Blackrock College of Further Education

with State exams in Hairdressing and in Beauty Therapy.

Grace continued her apprenticeship with Peter Mark which

followed on into management, during her time in Peter Mark

she was a member of the Irish Hairdressing team and

competed in national and international competitions. Grace

was also an in-salon trainer from the time she qualified with

the company. Grace has an ITEC diploma in Holistic

massage therapy, Anatomy and physiology and Indian head

massage. Grace has been in Sallynoggin College of Further

Education since 2002 and has taught Hairdressing QQI level

5, Junior and Senior Trade Hairdressing, Communications,

Team Leadership level 6, Health Promotion Level 6. Grace

is a past student of Rockford Manor.

Edward Gillic

Edward qualified from UCD in 1997 in Veterinary

Medicine. He holds a Masters in European Food and

Regulatory Affairs and obtained the General Practitioner

Certificate in Small Animal Surgery in 2009. His interests

are mainly in the area of soft tissue surgery and is

particularly skilled in the field of orthopaedic surgery and

fracture repair. Edward lives in Meath with his family.


Adrian Eames hails from Sligo and has vast experience

working in radio as a presenter, commentator and

producer. Now with RTE, he has previously worked for

Mid-West Radio, North West Radio (now Ocean FM)

and FM 104. Joining RTE in 1998, he has presented all

of the flagship sports programmes on RTE Radio,

including Saturday Sport and Sunday Sport, Sport at 7,

Drivetime Sport and Game On. He works both in radio

and television. Adrian has been Head of the RTE Radio

Adrian Eames Team for three Olympic and Paralympic Games (Beijing,

London and Rio De Janeiro). Having commentated on the

World Cup in South Africa (2010) and Rio (2014) for

RTE Television, he will take on that role for the third time

this summer, when he travels to the World Cup in Russia

as television commentator for RTE. Adrian has won many

awards for his work, including the ESB Media Award for

Best Sports Programme, PPI Gold Radio Award for

RTE’s radio coverage of the Beijing Olympics, Best

Producer/Presenter of the Paralympic Games and has

twice won the FAI Communication Award for

Feature/Broadcast of the Year.

Biography of Participant Natasha Cole

Natasha has always had a huge interest in Computer

Science since her early years. She holds a Bachelor of

Science in Business Computing. She studied many

different programming languages including Java,

JavaScript and Ruby. Today she is an iOS Developer

switching between Objective-C and Swift depending on

what projects she is working on. Natasha is currently

contracting in a company called CarTrawler (recently

voted the 16th best place to work in in Ireland) working

on an SDK for car rental during booking. She previously

worked on the easyJet application in a company called

Travelport Digital since 2014 and has had many other

projects throughout her career.

Larry Bass

John Fogarty


In 1999 Larry Founded ShinAwiL Productions Ltd. Larry

has Executive Produced the Irish versions of series’, The

Apprentice that won 2 IFTA’s, Dragons’ Den, Master

Chef Ireland, The Voice of Ireland and most recently the

hugely successful Dancing with The Stars. Other recent

productions include Home of the Year, What are you

Eating? Now the ShinAwiL focus is on International

Drama. Larry has sat on many boards including: Screen

Producers Ireland, Screen Training Ireland, Board of the

Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, currently sits on the

Irish Film Board and Entertainment Masterclass. He has

also sat on a jury for the International Emmys, Rose d’Or,

BANFF and Real Screen Television Awards. Larry has

guest lectured at DIT Dublin, IADT Dublin, MipTV and

MIPCOM, SPAA Australia and Entertainment

Masterclass. In his spare time Larry is Chairman of

National League Soccer club Cabinteely FC.

John Fogarty (38) has been the Gaelic Games

Correspondent of the Irish Examiner since 2010. Prior

to that, he was a sports reporter and chief sports sub-

editor with the Irish Mail on Sunday/Ireland on Sunday

where he worked for 12 years. John studied English

and Sociology in NUI Maynooth, editing the college

newspaper in his final year there. He was awarded the

McNamee National GAA Journalism award in 2006.

He lives in Firhouse, Dublin.


Fabian McGrath

Teodora Stoyanova

Fabian is Lecturer in Transfusion Science in Dublin

Institute of Technology and Member of the Transfusion

Transplantation Advisory Board of the Academy of

Clinical Science and Laboratory Medicine(ACSLM). He

studied in DIT receiving his BSc from Trinity College

Dublin in 1992 and his MSc, with distinction, from TCD

in 2000 . Fabian worked as Medical Scientist for 17 years

in several locations in Dublin, including the Irish Blood

Trans Service and the Mater hospital before becoming a

Senior Medical Scientist in 1998 in Tallaght Hospital. In

2001, he moved to the Netherlands where he worked in

research in the department of immunopathology at

Sanquin Blood Centre in Amsterdam. While there, he

published several scientific papers on the immune system

protein Complement C1q. Since 2007, Fabian has been

lecturing to undergraduate and post graduate students in

DIT and is the Chair of the MSc in Clinical Laboratory

Science.

Teodora Stoyanova is the Relationship Manager at

LinkedIn and has been working within the company for

3 years. As a Relationship Manager she works with

Spanish companies helping them to optimize their

recruitment and employer branding strategy. Before

LinkedIn, she worked at Google for one year as a

Business development specialist.

Fiona O Connor

Ciara Mc Auley


Fiona O Connor is an Early Years Teacher. Initially she

went to college and studied Dance and Performance for

one year but then changed career paths and began a

degree in Early Childhood Education. She holds a BA. in

Early Childhood Education and is also a fully qualified

Forest School Leader. Fiona’s experience is mainly with

young children from ages 3-6 and she currently works in a

primary school where she teaches ages 3-4 in the morning

and then teaches ages 4-6 outside in the forest in the

afternoon. Fiona has a passion for traveling and

volunteering. She has travelled to Malawi in Africa twice

to help with improving and sustaining Early Years and

Adult Education.

Ciara studied Computing in IT Tallaght and then

Computer Applications in DCU. She worked in Amazon

during college as a Systems Engineer Intern for 6 months.

She joined Workday as a Graduate Software Engineer in

2016 as part of their Technology Rotation Program.

Workday is an American cloud enterprise software

company with its EU headquarters in Dublin. Ciara is

now finished the graduate program and working as part of

the Statistics Warehouse team which deals with

processing and storing petabytes of data.


Lisa Donnelly

Lisa has a Distinction Bachelor of Arts degree in

leisure management and soon to have a Bachelor of

Science (Hons) degree in Leisure Management through

Dublin Institute of Technology. She currently works

for DLR Leisure and holds various Internationally

recognised fitness qualifications, from swim teaching

to gym instruction and various group exercise

qualifications. Lisa has experienced all elements of life

after secondary school, failed attempt at 3rd level

education, working full time, PLC courses and now

back to third level while maintaining a full-time job.

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