Joan Geoghegan BA, PhD

Joan Geoghegan is a Royal Society Wolfson Fellow and Senior Lecturer in Microbiology and Infection. Her research career has focused on understanding the molecular basis of colonization and infection by Staphylococcus aureus. Her PhD training at Trinity College Dublin with Tim Foster involved the biochemical and biophysical characterization of staphylococcal fibrinogen-binding proteins, carrying out part of her thesis work with Magnus Höök (Texas A&M University). This work led to a redefinition of the ligand-binding site within the fibrinogen binding protein ClfA. As a postdoctoral researcher, Dr. Geoghegan initiated early studies on the molecular basis of protein-mediated biofilm accumulation in S. aureus. In 2012 she established her research group studying staphylococcal pathogenesis at Trinity College Dublin and in 2020 she was appointed to the Institute of Microbiology and Infection at the University of Birmingham.