Dr. Fernanda Bellolio, MD, MS is a Professor of Emergency Medicine with joint appointments in Quantitative Health Sciences, Division of Health Care Policy and Research, and Department of Medicine, Division of Community Internal Medicine, Geriatrics, and Palliative Care at Mayo Clinic. She is the Research Chair for the Department of Emergency Medicine, and the Director of Clinical Applications for the Mayo Clinic Robert and Arlene Kogod Center on Aging.  

Dr. Bellolio is a leader in research methodology, patient centered care, clinical research, and geriatric research. She has conducted multiple clinical trials, observational studies, systematic reviews, and clinical guidelines. She has more than 200 peer reviewed publications and 10,000 citations to her articles.  Dr. Bellolio is the site-principal investigator for multiple National Institutes of Health/National Institutes of Aging funded studies related to delirium, dementia, transitions of care, optimization of medical record and the care of the older adults.  

A list of her publication in the National Library of Medicine is available: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=bellolio+mf%5Bau%5D+OR+fernanda+bellolio&sort=date 

Colonel Phil Bonner is a helicopter pilot in the Irish Air Corps and has led high performance teams in emergency aviation for over 25 years. He has accrued over 5,000hrs of flying experience in diverse and high risk mission types including Search and Rescue, Police Aviation, Aerial Firefighting, Counter Terrorism and Emergency Medicine operations. He has served overseas with the United Nations as the Chief Military Aviation Officer in Chad and the Central African Republic.  He has been the Chief pilot on the Emergency Aeromedical Service and has commanded numerous Squadrons and Wings within the Air Corps. He has served as the head of Flight Safety and Chief Accident Investigator. He is in charge of the Air Corps Human Factors and Crew Resource Management training, within which leadership and positive team performance is promoted. He holds a BSc and an MA in Leadership, is an avid dog walker and a mediocre Padel player. 

Dr Ola Borgquist is a senior consultant in the cardiothoracic ICU at Skåne University Hospital in Lund, Sweden, and an associate professor at Lund University with ongoing research within the central line field.  

Along with Robin Lundén he is senior editor at interanest.org and the associated YouTube channel where he shares state of the art techniques in cannulation, central lines and Seldinger drains.  

Dr. Daniel Cabrera is a Professor of Emergency Medicine at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota and the inaugural Director for the Mayo Clinic Harper Family Foundation Artificial Intelligence in Medicine Program, Director of Advanced Digital Education as well as former Associate Dean for Continuous Professional Development. In his current role, he oversees all creation, development and implementation of Artificial Intelligence education at Mayo Clinic. 

He has been at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, since 2005. A native of Chile, he obtained his medical degree from Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile where he was also part of an experimental training program in EM. He then completed an Emergency Medicine residency at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine. After his residency he enrolled in the ACEP/EMF Teaching Fellowship, and he has served as faculty in the same program. He was the editor-in-chief for the Mayo Clinic EM Blog and was the co-director of Mayo Hootsuite Healthcare in Social Media course. He serves in the advisory board of national and international educational societies.  

Dr. Cabrera is very active in the field of Artificial Intelligence development and productization, leading the creation and implementation of multiple AI and machine learning clinical tools and other advance technologies such as distributed networks and blockchain. His focus is on the adoption of fusion skills. 

Dr. Cabrera has a developed technology innovations including automatic resource allocation systems, artificial intelligence algorithms for management optimization, network analysis of knowledge management and distributed testing. He is the current director of the Emergency Medicine Platform for Knowledge Solutions which is an idea incubator focused on innovation, entrepreneurship, digital health, and knowledge creation. 

His academic interests include artificial intelligence, wicked problems, non-ergodic problems, knowledge management, clinical decision-making, health professions education and the interaction between humans and non-human agents. 

Mr David Chung has previous experience as a BMA Junior Doctor Committee Member and Negotiator, Clinical Director for Emergency Medicine for NHS Ayrshire and Arran, and Vice President (Scotland) for RCEM. As well as over 25 years of Emergency Medicine in Glasgow and the West of Scotland. 

His interest lies in trying to leave things in a better state than which he found them, and generally trying to make himself into a better person, for everyone else’s benefit. Unfortunately he’s mostly kept busy dealing with the unintended consequences of this process. 

Dr. Louis Anthony “Tony” Cirillo serves on the National Board of Directors for the American College of Emergency Physicians, served as Chair of the Board from 2022-2023 and began his term as President of the College in September. Dr. Cirillo has been a practicing emergency physician for over 30 years, and in addition to clinical practice, serves as the Director of Government Affairs for his physician group, US Acute Care Solutions. In this professional role he has been deeply engaged in advocacy efforts related to all aspects of EM practice, especially legislative and regulatory activities that affect reimbursement and practice viability. Dr. Cirillo is also a passionate advocate for improving the care of patients with behavioral health emergencies. 

Dr. Cirillo earned his medical degree from the University of Vermont College of Medicine, completed a Transitional year of Internal Medicine at the George Washington University Hospital in Washington, DC and completed his residency in emergency medicine at UMASS Medical Center in Worcester, MA where he served as a Chief Resident. 

Elaine Cole is a Professor of Trauma Sciences at Queen Mary University, London where she leads the MSc in Trauma Sciences. Her research interests include trauma-related organ dysfunction, blood product resuscitation and acute outcomes in traumatically injured patients. Elaine is also the Director of Research and Innovation for the London Major Trauma System. 

Mr Paul Creevey has worked at Dublin Fire Brigade (DFB) for 28 years.  He has been a Fire Fighter and Advanced Paramedic for 19 years and an Officer and Advanced Paramedic since 2017. 

He has extensive experience with Irish Statutory, Private and Voluntary pre-hospital care providers as well as international pre-hospital care providers.  

He is currently DFB District Officer with responsibility for Emergency Medical Service Training.  Additionally he is a Governance Validation Framework (GVF) and Quality Review Framework (QRF) assessor and Medical Advisory Committee member for the regulator, the Pre-Hospital Emergency Care Council (PHECC). 

Gareth has worked in Emergency Medicine & Prehospital Care for over 30 years with the majority of his career working at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel and London’s Helicopter Air Ambulance as Medical Director. His specialist interests lie in the prehospital phase of injury, traumatic and medical cardiac arrest, mechanism of injury, and major incident management. He has authored over 60 papers in peer reviewed journals and chapters in seminal trauma and prehospital care texts. He regularly contributes to on-line learning initiatives. Services led by Gareth have a reputation for strong clinical governance and innovative techniques & processes in prehospital practice, ranging from prehospital thoracotomy, to endovascular resuscitation and prehospital ECMO. Gareth has led the teams that attended many of London’s major incidents over the last two decades. Gareth also has an interest in motorsport and is Chief Medical Officer for the TT Motorcycle Races in the Isle of Man. Utilising 3 medical helicopters, the medical services give a unique in-sight into the hyper–acute phase of head injury and impact brain apnoea in humans. 

Dr Laura Duffy is an Emergency Medicine Consultant with North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Trust and works in Pre-Hospital Emergency Medicine with the Great North Air Ambulance Service, where she is Deputy Medical Director. She is also Clinical Director of the Northern Trauma Network and a member of the NHS England Clinical Reference Group for Major Trauma and Burns. A former military doctor, Duffy has extensive experience in trauma care both in hospital and pre-hospital environments. Her work focuses on system development, trauma networks and improving outcomes for patients with major injury. Drawing on her background in both military and civilian practice, she is passionate about shaping high-quality regional trauma and pre-hospital services, ensuring teams deliver consistent, excellent care across the patient pathway. 

Dr. Fares Al-Ali is the first Canadian and American board-certified emergency physician from the United
Arab Emirates. He completed the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada Emergency
Medicine Residency Program at McGill University in Montreal, Canada (2002-2007). In 2008, he
completed a fellowship in EMS at the University of Toronto in Canada, followed by a Disaster Medicine
Fellowship at BIDMC in Boston, a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School, as Harvard’s first Disaster
Medicine fellow and as co-founder of the program (2009). In May 2011, he obtained his MPH from Johns
Hopkins University and later his DrPH in Health Care Management and Leadership from the same
institution (May 2021).

Dr. Fares Al-Ali is the former Head of the Emergency Department and former Program Director at Zayed
Military Hospital, with extensive military medicine experience, including operational and civil-military
deployments. He is the founder and former chairman of the Trauma System Initiative of the Emirate of
Abu Dhabi and the founder and past president of the Emirates Society of Emergency Medicine (ESEM).
Dr. Fares Al-Ali spearheaded key initiatives, including the first official Trauma Registry in the Emirate of
Abu Dhabi, the Abu Dhabi STEMI network involving various stakeholders, and the approval of the UAE
“Good Samaritan Law,” the first of its kind in an Arab country. He led the ESEM Conference to become
the largest Emergency Medicine Conference in the MENA region and successfully hosted ICEM 2021 in
the region, with over 2,500 delegates.

He also served as Executive Director of the Center for Emergency Preparedness and Response (CEPAR)
at the Department of Health – Abu Dhabi, where he developed a new integrated model of emergency
care (the Abu Dhabi Health Emergency Management – HEM Model). Dr. Fares Al-Ali has contributed to
several international textbooks and peer-reviewed articles in the fields of Emergency Medicine, EMS,
and Disaster Medicine and has presented at numerous conferences both regionally and internationally.

Dr. James Foley is a Consultant in Emergency Medicine at University Hospital Galway and Academic Senior Lecturer at the University of Galway. He has developed a strong academic career in emergency medicine, co-founding the Irish Trainee Emergency Medicine Research Network in 2018, and completed a trauma research fellowship in North Bristol Trust NHS after obtaining his CCT in EM in 2022. His current work focuses on improving healthcare performance and advancing innovation in the emergency department. 

A recent key strand of Dr. Foley’s research is the application of artificial intelligence to emergency care. He led the AIDED study, which evaluated AI-generated discharge correspondence, and he is the principal investigator for projects exploring AI-based triage of GP referral letters, predictive modelling for early detection of critical illness, and the integration of AI into frontline ED processes. These studies build on his experience in trauma and quality improvement, bringing a data-driven approach to some of emergency medicine’s most pressing challenges. 

Looking ahead, Dr. Foley’s research aims to embed AI into triage systems and clinical decision support, enhancing safety, efficiency, and patient outcomes in Irish emergency departments. By combining rigorous research, national audit work, and education, he is helping to shape the future role of AI in emergency medicine and ensure it is implemented in a way that supports clinicians and benefits patients. 

Dr Brian Gibney is a Diagnostic Radiologist with special interests in Emergency  and Abdominal imaging, based in Mater Misericordiae University Hospital, Dublin. He is assisting in the deployment of AI solutions for Radiology in the Mater. 

Dr Taj Hassan has been a consultant in Emergency Medicine at the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust since 1999 and is Director of the Centre for Emergency Care and Global Health in Leeds. He is Past President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (2016 – 2019) and present Chair of the Global EM Committee for the RCEM since 2024.

Internationally, he has been involved in running leadership training programmes for the International Federation of EM (IFEM) as well as for the European Society for EM and designed and co-led the EMLeaders programme for the Royal College of Emergency Medicine in 2018 that is now embedded into training in the UK. His other main interests are technology enhanced education and systems development to help build safer emergency care.

He has been Chair for Europe on the Board of the International Federation for EM (2016 to 2022) as well as Chair of the International Faculty of the Pakistan Society of EM since 2019 and is also the Chair of the newly formed South east Asian Collaborative for Emergency care (SACEM) made of six regional countries.

He leads the collaborative HALO Programme at www.cailtec.org which aims amongst other initiatives to help ‘fast track’ emergency care development in South Asia – home to 1 in 5 people on the planet !

Dr Stephen Hearns is a consultant in emergency and aeromedical retrieval medicine. He has worked in emergency medicine in Glasgow for over 30 years. He also works with Scotland’s Emergency Medical Retrieval Service. This aeromedical retrieval service delivers pre-hospital critical care for major trauma patients, rural hospital secondary retrievals and major incident responses. He led the establishment of this team from a small voluntary service in 2004 to what is now a fully government funded aeromedical retrieval organisation with an international reputation. 

Stephen led the team establishing the Diploma in retrieval and transfer medicine for the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. He developed and contributes to the organisation of the annual UK retrieval conference. Stephen is an Honorary Senior Lecturer in the University of Glasgow. 

He has been an active voluntary member of Arrochar mountain rescue team for 27 years and holds the Mountain Leader Award. Stephen acted as medical officer on seven international expeditions in mountain, desert, jungle and arctic environments before establishing the first expedition medicine course in the UK. 

Stephen’s main interest is optimising team performance in high pressure situations. He researches, writes and speaks on both of these topics and provides advice to a wide range of commercial and government organisations. His book, Peak Performance Under Pressure, was published in 2019. 

He acts as an expert witness for the General Medical Council, NHS Scotland’s Central Legal Office, pursuers’ solicitors, the Procurator Fiscal and medical defence organisations.  

Website: www.CoreCognition.co.uk 

Pieter Heeren has a background as a geriatric nurse practitioner. His special interest in geriatric emergency care fuelled the development and implementation of the ‘URGENT’ care model for geriatric emergency care at University Hospitals Leuven (Belgium). Pieter reported the effectiveness and improvement opportunities of this nurse-led care model in a doctoral thesis, which he defended successfully in 2021. After a one year post-doctoral fellowship at KU Leuven and a 6-month appointment to study the effectiveness of nursing consultations on behalf of the Belgian Healthcare Knowledge Centre, Pieter started working as a post-doctoral assistant at the faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences in Hasselt, Belgium. 

For several years (2016-present), Pieter has been a guest speaker and lecturer, introducing healthcare workers to principles of geriatric emergency care. He joined the European Taskforce on Geriatric Emergency Medicine in 2019 and is the current co-chair of the Geriatric Section in the European Society for Emergency Medicine (EUSEM).

Dr Jo Kelliher is a Consultant in Critical Care and Emergency Medicine in the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital with a keen interest in resuscitation and extracorporeal life support.  

Dr. Rachel Liu is a Professor of Emergency Medicine at Yale School of Medicine and graduate of Trinity College Dublin. She is the Fellowship Director of Emergency Ultrasound as well as the Director of Point of Care Ultrasound Education for the school. She has held leadership roles in the major EM organizations in the United States including within ACEP and SAEM (including SonoGames©). She has set national standards within the United States by contributing on inaugural Advanced EM Ultrasound Certification Committees within the American Board of Emergency Medicine also serves as a Case Developer for the general Certifying Examination. Her areas of scholarship focus on innovative teaching methods and curriculum design, competency assessment and artificial intelligence.  

Anuradha Luke MD is a board-certified Emergency Medicine and EMS consultant at Mayo Clinic in Rochester MN.  She serves as the Medical Director for Mayo Clinic Ambulance service overseeing 14 ground, 3 helicopter and 1 fixed wing base with 582 team members responding to 87,000 calls per year. She also serves as the Chair of the EMS Division of the Department of Emergency Medicine and is an Assistant Program Director for the EMS fellowship program.  Her interests include prehospital care, medical education and equity.

Barry Mc Brien is best known for his extensive background in emergency nursing. Over the course of his career, he has held a variety of clinical and leadership roles, culminating in his appointment as an Advanced Nurse Practitioner (ANP). Currently, Barry works as an Assistant Professor of General Nursing, in the School of Nursing in Trinity College Dublin, where he coordinates the Advanced Practice and Prescribing Programmes. His academic contributions include numerous publications in high-impact journals, particularly in the fields of emergency nursing and advanced practice. Barry is in the final year of a PhD, where he is investigating the workplace integration of Indian migrant nurses within the Irish healthcare system using a mixed methods research approach. Barry maintains strong links with the clinical area and continues to work part time as an ANP in Tallaght University Hospital.  

Kara Mc Loughlin graduated with a BSc (Hons) in Occupational Therapy from Teesside University in 2012. She worked in the UK & New Zealand before returning to Ireland in 2016. She has taken an active role in prompting Occupational Therapy in Ireland and sat on the management team for the Association of Occupational Therapy.

Both academically and clinically Kara has had an active role in the emerging area of Geriatric Emergency Medicine. She completed her MSc in Older Persons Rehabilitation at University College Cork and completing research exploring Emergency Medics understanding and management of frailty. She was also involved in the setting up of a number of Frail Intervention Therapy Teams through Ireland before commencing her current post as research fellow/PhD candidate in the University of Limerick in May 2023.

Dr Andy Neill graduated 2004 from Queens University Belfast. He trained in Emergency Medicine and Intensive Care in Northern Ireland, New Zealand and Ireland. He has produced several educational podcasts including the Anatomy for Emergency Medicine podcast and the Tasty Morsels of Critical care podcast. He is one of the founding contributors for the RCEM podcast. He also taught anatomy in Trinity College Dublin for 2 years. He completed EM training in 2019 and completed a 2 year fellowship in critical care before taking up the post of Consultant in Emergency Medicine and Intensive Care at the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital in 2021 where he continues to work in both specialties. He has a sub specialty interest in echocardiography and has completed comprehensive accreditation in both transthoracic and transoesophageal echocardiography.  

Ciara Nother currently works as the CNM3 in the Mater Emergency Department. She has many years experience of Emergency nursing working in both Dublin and Melbourne. Ciara has a post graduate qualification in emergency nursing and a Masters in clinical practice. Her interests include trauma nursing, clinical education and staff wellbeing.

Dr. Alison O’Connor is an Assistant Professor of Health-Related Data Analytics in the Department of Computer Science and Information Systems at the University of Limerick. With a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Imperial College London and as an IMechE Chartered Engineer, she brings a unique blend of engineering expertise and advanced proficiency in artificial intelligence and machine learning. 

Her interdisciplinary research bridges computer science, health analytics, and engineering, with a focus on applying machine learning and data science to complex, real-world systems. She is co-lead of the ALTER project, funded by Science Foundation Ireland, which is developing a digital twin of an overcrowded emergency department to model patient flow and support healthcare decision-making through real-time analytics. 

A former Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow, Dr. O’Connor has contributed to major academic and industrial research initiatives, collaborating with organizations including Analog Devices, TWI Ltd, Rolls-Royce, and the HSE. 

She is an active educator and supervisor of MSc and PhD students in areas such as AI, simulation, and health data science. Her research has been widely published, and she continues to contribute to innovation in explainable AI, safety-critical systems, and health-focused digital technologies. 

Kim Price currently works as the Clinical Nurse Manager 3 in the Emergency Department at CHI Temple Street. She has many years’ of experience working in adult, mixed and paediatric Emergency Departments in Cork, Dublin and Melbourne. Kim holds post graduate qualifications in paediatric and emergency nursing. She completed her Master of Advanced Nursing Practice through research at the University of Melbourne in 2019. Her research portfolio and interests include triage education delivery, in situ simulation and quality improvement in the Emergency Department. She has a keen interest in clinical education and quality assurance, with the aim of supporting emergency teams to deliver excellent care to patients and families.  

In May of this year, Kim proudly worked with CHI, the Department of Health and the Irish Red Cross team to assist in the medical evacuation of sick and injured Gazan children to Ireland for treatment and care.   

Josephine Ryan is the Chief Executive Officer of Mater Misericordiae University Hospital. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Nursing from Trinity College Dublin and began her career in clinical practice before moving into senior management, serving as Chief Operating Officer during the COVID-19 pandemic before her appointment as CEO. Her expertise spans corporate C-Suite leadership, business management, and healthcare operations, with oversight of data governance, electronic healthcare records, tendering processes, and organisational performance. She successfully led the Hospital through major challenges including the COVID-19 pandemic and a national cyber-attack. Josephine also holds an MBA from UCD Smurfit Business School, a Master’s in Leadership from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, completed a finance programme at the London School of Economics, and is certified in Lean Six Sigma. She is a Director on the Board of the Royal Hospital Donnybrook, where she chairs the Clinical Governance Subcommittee, and she also serves as Vice Chair of the Board of HAIL (House Association for Integrated Living), where she leads its Governance Subcommittee.

Sarah Watkins has recently taken up post as the National Nurse Lead for the Emergency Medicine Programme where she is keen to progress an agenda that magnifies the contribution of emergency nurses.  Prior to this, Sarah was an RANP for Acute Medicine based in the MAU at Ennis Hospital. Sarah believes that the transition to Integrated Care Models and RHAs provides a platform for RANPs to maximise their economic strength and contribution.   

Sarah’s background is in Emergency Nursing in Ireland and the UK with 25 years’ experience.  One of Sarah’s proudest achievements was the completion of a Structured PhD in Nursing at UL in 2020 whilst working full time and during the grip of Covid 19.  The PhD generated four publications in peer reviewed journals and incorporated participatory research methods to explore the experiences of nurses and family members caring for older people with dementia in the ED. Sarah is an advocate for Appreciative Inquiry Methodology as an approach to practice development.  Appreciative Inquiry seeks to disrupt the status quo and work towards a context-driven and collective future by building on strengths and Sarah hopes to incorporate some of these key elements in her current role.