The Economics of Late Life Divorce in High-Income Countries: Causes and consequences of divorce after the age of 50

Divorce after the age of 50, referred to as “grey divorce,” is rising in high-income countries, presenting unique challenges for individuals and society. Unlike divorces earlier in life, grey divorce disrupts long-term financial plans, such as retirement savings, at a stage when rebuilding wealth or achieving financial stability is difficult due to limited time left in the labor market. Older divorcees also face risks of social isolation, reduced access to informal care, and increased dependence on public assistance. These challenges are critical as more societies face rapidly aging populations, likely leading to a rise in the number of grey divorces.

Despite the growing prevalence of grey divorce, current research is limited, often relying on U.S.-centric perspectives and cross-sectional approaches. This fails to capture the complexities of grey divorce over time, provide causal evidence, and clarify the influence of diverse institutional contexts. Consequently, there is a lack of understanding about how grey divorce is influenced by individual and couple-level economic factors, such as income and wealth inequalities, and how these factors interact with broader welfare systems and family policies. Furthermore, the short-term to long-term economic consequences of grey divorce, particularly differences across gender and social groups, remain underexplored.

This project fills these gaps by addressing two central questions: What economic factors drive grey divorce, and what are its effects on individuals’ financial well-being? These questions will be addressed with a focus on individual- and couple-level factors as well as potential differences by gender and class. The project will use advanced longitudinal methods and cross-national data from high-income countries such as the UK, Ireland, Germany, Sweden, Australia, and the US. By comparing these diverse contexts, the study will identify how shared and country-specific factors, such as differences and similarities in pension systems and family policies, shape both the causes and consequences of grey divorce.

The findings will contribute to academic debates on aging, family dynamics, and inequality while providing actionable insights for policymakers. Recommendations will focus on strengthening financial resilience for older adults, promoting equitable family policies, and addressing gendered and economic inequalities linked to divorce.

Aligned with Trinity College Dublin’s local and global social ambitions, this research emphasizes financial stability and social inclusion as critical components of healthy aging societies. By addressing the economic challenges of grey divorce, the project aims to foster sustainable, inclusive communities where older adults, regardless of family circumstances, can live with dignity, security, and economic independence.

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Harnessing trained innate immunity to support infants to fight infection

The most vulnerable time to getting an infection is the newborn period. There has been a lot of research to show that babies immune systems work differently to older children’s and adult’s and that the immune system changes over our lifetime. What is not as well understood is the cause of these underlying differences. Our immune systems were originally thought to have two separate arms – innate immunity that contains the cells that see invading pathogens for the first time and have non-specific actions and the adaptive arm that is more complex and results in targeted antibodies that persist and allow us to have memory against certain infections. About a decade ago it was realised that innate immune cells also have a type of memory that means that after they are exposed to an infectious stimulant they react differently when exposed to the same or other stimulants. This research coincided with the recognition that the way immune cells use energy (immunometabolism) determines their response when faced with infection, leading to new avenues of research questions.

This research proposal will use the innate immune cells that are present in the umbilical cord placenta after baby is born – the same cells that would have been circulating in the baby prior to delivery. We will use these cells and compare them to healthy adults to examine if differences in the way the cells can kill different types of bacteria. We will look at the way the cells alter their genetic profiles and the way that they use energy to see if that is what causes the expected differences. I am paediatrician working in Children’s Health Ireland so we will also look at the immune cells of infants under 6 months of age who are admitted with bacterial infection to see what changes occur both during and after the infection.

New born infections are a global health issue with over half a million babies dying every year from infection in the first month of life, the majority in the developing world. Understanding the fundamental aspects of newborn’s immune systems will allow us to develop better methods of both treating infections and preventing them through better vaccination strategies.

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Manipulating macrophage bioenergetics to improve host response in TB infection

Project 3 Abstract:

Dynamic Patterns in Plant-Herbivore Interactions

Plant-herbivore interactions shape ecosystems as we see them, pose a major threat to global food security and inform the development of new medicines. These interactions are underpinned by plant defence chemistry and herbivore behaviour. In the absence of stress, many plant defences are switched off to avoid unnecessary energy expenditure. A singular stress event induces transient defence responses. However, herbivore feeding is a complex array of multiple stress events across space and time.  As such, herbivores convey detailed information—more like Morse code than a siren— to the plant and induce responses that are scalable to the amount, timing and location of feeding. 

A major unresolved question in ecology is how the dynamic interplay between plant defences and herbivore behaviour unfolds. Plant defences can shape herbivore feeding patterns, just as herbivore behaviour can influence the dynamics and strength of plant defences.  

This PhD project will use multidisciplinary techniques to monitor real-time herbivore feeding patterns and plant traits, aiming to disentangle innate herbivore behaviours from those shaped by plant chemistry across diverse genetic, phenotypic and environmental contexts. This project spearheads a paradigm shift in how we study plant-herbivore interactions, with the goal of enhancing the resilience of wild and agricultural systems. 

Writing from the Margins: Irish Women's Narratives from the Long Eighteenth Century (MARGINS)

Stability in the spine, an investigation into spinal ligaments, how they develop, grow, and change during scoliosis

Adolescent Idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) is a musculoskeletal disorder characterised by a three-dimensional curvature deformation of the spine that develops during adolescence. The condition affects approximately 3% of the population, exhibiting a female bias, with an cause that remains largely unknown. It is associated with genetic, sensory and hormonal disturbances, with accompanying physical imbalances in a number of the tissues of the spine including the bony vertebrae, the intervertebral discs and the musculature. Another important tissue of the spine that has been largely un-studied are the spinal ligaments.

There are five spinal ligaments in the human that provide important functions including: stabilisation, movement co-ordination and holding of vertebrae together for protection of the spinal cord. During adolescent growth the spine undergoes increased pulling and the tissues respond by changing their characteristics. Cells within vertebrae, intervertebral discs and muscles adjust to accommodate these mechanical changes, yet it is not known how ligaments respond. There is some evidence showing that ligaments are structurally altered in AIS patients, and physical and computer models of reduced ligament strength too result in scoliosis. Using histological tissue characterisation approaches, tissue strength testing and molecular investigations, this study will provide the first investigation of spinal ligaments and generate new knowledge about how ligaments behave during scoliosis.

A cross species comparison of the setting up of spinal ligament stability in embryonic chick (bipedal) and mouse (quadrupedal) models will identify any characteristic that are evolutionarily conserved, independent of locomotion mode. Investigating the importance of embryonic movement in these tissues in the spine, will build on knowledge that movement plays important roles in spinal curvature and for the architecture of cartilage, bone and tendons (a very similarly composed and functional connective tissue) in the limb. Using a mouse model of AIS that presents progressive worsening of spinal curvature, an investigation into structural and functional changes that occur in this condition will be assessed.

The study will compare biological sex as a parameter throughout. Understanding how ligaments form and achieve their characteristics facilitating their function is valuable for a number of reasons. Firstly to bridge gaps in knowledge regarding how and if failures in ligaments contribute to musculoskeletal disorders and secondly adding to our understanding of how ligament tissues develop normally, may be beneficial in therapeutic contexts to guide the formation of engineered tissues for replacement.

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The path of tauopathies: Targeting abnormal post-translational modifications of tau in live rat models

Tauopathies are a group of neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease, that are characterized by the abnormal changes of a protein called tau. Under normal conditions, tau helps stabilize structures in brain cells called microtubules. However, in tauopathies, tau becomes abnormally modified, leading to its aggregation and disruption of normal brain functions. Our research investigates how certain forms of brain activity—long-term potentiation (LTP) and long-term depression (LTD) of synaptic transmission—trigger alterations of post-translational modifications (PTMs) in tau protein. These processes, which are essential for learning and memory, may also play a role in the early stages of tau pathology. Our study uses state-of-the-art tools, such as in vivo electrophysiology to measure brain activity, optogenetics (a tool that uses light to control brain cells) to selectively activate neural pathways, and biochemical techniques to analyze tau modifications. Additionally, we will evaluate how these changes affect memory and learning. 

We aim to distinguish normal tau modifications from those that lead to disease. Our findings could pave the way for therapies targeting specific harmful tau modifications without disrupting its normal functions. 

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FemRePro: A female reproductive tissue property database

Despite representing around 50% of the global population, women’s health has historically been underfunded and under-researched. Only 5% of global research and development funding is directed toward women’s health. This lack of investment has serious implications. For example, women are diagnosed later than men for over 700 diseases, and the FDA only recommended including women in clinical trials in 1993. As a result of this lack of research and inclusion, it may not be surprising women are 52% more likely to suffer adverse drug reactions and 29% more likely to die from these reactions than men.

While recent initiatives such as Ireland’s ‘Women’s Health Action Plan 2024-2025’ show progress, much more work is needed. For instance, there are still far more studies on erectile dysfunction, a condition affecting 19% of men, than on premenstrual syndrome, which affects 90% of women. To address this research gap, there is a critical need for a deeper understanding of the female reproductive system—its structure, mechanics, and how it varies across women.

The female reproductive system consists of several key organs: the ovaries, uterine tubes, uterus, cervix, and vagina. These organs play crucial roles in day-to-day life, fertility, hormone balance, and more. While some progress has been made in studying some of these tissue individually, like the cervix and uterus, much less is known about the microstructure and mechanics of the fallopian tubes and vaginal canal. There is also a lack of understanding on the structural interplay between these organs. Additionally, factors like age, ethnicity, body mass index, and medical history can significantly influence tissue properties and function, but these are rarely considered in research.

This project aims to fill these gaps by creating the beginnings of a patient specific database of the microstructure and mechanics of the female reproductive organs. By collecting relevant patient data alongside tissue samples from excised hysterectomy specimens, we will map out how these organs function at a microscopic level and how they vary across different women. This research will not only advance our understanding of the reproductive system but also guide innovations in medical devices, treatments, and diagnostics for women’s health. With a patient-specific approach, this study could lead to breakthroughs in understanding diseases like endometriosis and ultimately improve health outcomes for women worldwide.

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(Tropical) geometry of Hurwitz numbers beyond type A

How many lines pass through two points? Exactly one!

This simple fact, learned in school, introduces enumerative geometry – a field of mathematics that counts how many geometric objects of a given shape exist. These answers, called enumerative invariants, have fascinated mathematicians for centuries, dating back to ancient Greece. While some cases, like our two-point example, are simple, others remain deeply mysterious and are central to modern mathematical research.

This project builds on the groundbreaking work of German mathematician Adolf Hurwitz in the 1890s. Hurwitz studied “branched coverings” of curves, which are ways of relating curves to each other. He made a surprising discovery: under the right constraints, the number of these coverings is finite and thus can be counted. Even more remarkably, Hurwitz found an elegant description of these numbers in the field of representation theory, which can be viewed as the study of symmetries. In fact, this description is simple enough that any mathematics undergraduate can perform these computations.

For much of the 20th century, Hurwitz numbers were mostly a mathematical curiosity. However, they were rediscovered in the late 20th century due to deep connections with mathematical physics, leading to the development of Hurwitz theory.

A different perspective on Hurwitz’s original work is that he gives a geometric meaning to certain special symmetries arising from reflection groups of type A. However, there are many other reflection groups beyond type A. Following this idea, recent discoveries show that the representation theory of Hurwitz numbers extends to these types as well. Yet their geometry is still poorly understood.

In this project will explore the geometry of this more general Hurwitz theory using modern tools from tropical geometry – a novel mathematical framework that provides a dictionary between geometry and combinatorics. This will enable new insights and uncover deep structural properties.

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