Dr Kathy Ruddy | Public engagement | Queen's University Belfast

Dr Kathy Ruddy

Senior Lecturer, School of Psychology

TEDx Talk Title - 'Reprogramming the human brain'

Our brains make us who we are. They are a container for all of our knowledge, skills and cherished memories. They enable us to communicate and have relationships with others, move around our environment, and make sense of the world around us. Over the course of a lifetime, one in four of us will experience a Stroke, which often results in damage to the brain. The consequence of this brain damage can have enormous impact on quality of life. Stroke is one of the leading causes of adult disability worldwide. Throughout history, scientists and clinicians believed that the brain had a very limited capacity to recover, but recent decades of research have revealed that we retain a remarkable amount of plasticity within the brain, that can facilitate re-learning and rehabilitation following damage. Healthy parts of the brain can be promoted to take on the functions of the damaged regions. This talk will introduce my research on new ways to interact with the damaged human brain using brain-computer interfaces to harness this intrinsic plasticity that we all possess, to promote better recovery. I will also discuss some thought provoking ideas for the future of neurorehabilitation from conditions affecting not only the brain’s ‘hardware’ but also its ‘software’.

About the Speaker

I am a neuroscientist with a specific focus on using brain stimulation and Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) to modify aspects of neurophysiological function.

I graduated with a first class honours degree in Psychology from Queen’s University Belfast in 2010, followed by a PhD in Psychology with a focus on Motor Neuroscience in 2014 (also from Queen’s). Following this I worked as a postdoctoral researcher at ETH Zürich in Switzerland for three years, in the Department for Health Science and Technology. In 2017 I began working as a postdoctoral research fellow at Trinity College Dublin, and in 2019 received an Emerging Investigator Award from the Health Research Board of Ireland to establish the Translational Brain Health Lab at Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience. In 2023 I joined the School of Psychology at Queen’s University Belfast as a Senior Lecturer.

I was named as Irish Researcher of the year by the Irish Research Council in 2021, and have won early career awards from the Psychological Society of Ireland (PSI) and Neuroscience Ireland in 2018 and 2019. In 2022 I won the Northern Ireland Firmus Energy award for ‘Inspirational Woman of the Year’ in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths.