Geraldine Butler PhD

Dr. Geraldine Butler (BA (Mod) 1984, PhD 1989) is a Professor of Genetics in the School of Biomolecular and Biomedical Science, and a Principal Investigator in the Conway Institute. Her lab uses a combination of next-generation sequencing, comparative genomics and gene editing approaches to study evolution and virulence in pathogenic fungi, particularly Candida species. The Butler group was a participant in the Horizon 2020 OPATHY International Training Network, 'From Omics to Patient: Improving Diagnostics of Pathogenic Yeasts'. Prof Butler serves as an academic editor for the journals PLoS Genetics and mSphere and she has previously been an editor of PLoS One and Scientific Reports. She regularly reviews submissions to international journals and research agencies, and she has participated in assessment panels for the Medical Research Council (UK) and the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (France). She is Chair of the International Scientific Advisory Board (ISAB) of the MRC Centre for Medical Mycology at the University of Aberdeen.

Prof Butler is an active teacher. She led the introduction of the single honours degree in Genetics in UCD in 2006 and acted as Head of Subject until 2017. She contributes to teaching in 6 undergraduate modules. She was director of the Wellcome Trust-funded PhD Programme in Computational Infection Biology, and she is currently a participant in the SFI Centre for Research Training in Genomics Data Science.

Prof Butler was elected Fellow of the Society of Biology in 2011, and a member of the Royal Irish Academy (RIA) in 2015. She sat on the council of the RIA from 2016-2019, and she is currently part of the membership committee. Prof Butler was elected to the Governing Authority of UCD in 2019.