Postgraduate Research Fellowship Report - Kelly Donegan
Kelly Donegan
4th Year PhD Candidate at the Gillan Lab, Trinity Institute of Neuroscience, School of Psychology, Trinity College Dublin
Purpose: Research visit at University of Minnesota
Location: University of Minneapolis
Date: 19th – 24th July 2024
Date of grant: July/2024
Amount of Grant awarded: €750
Brief description of the event: The TRiSS Research Fellowship facilitated a research visit to Dr. Christine’s Conelea’s Minnesota Tic and Compulsivity Lab (MnTIC). The research visit consisted of an invited talk to present one of my PhD projects to members of the MnTIC lab and members of the Department of Psychiatry in the University of Minnesota. I also got the opportunity to shadow Christine and other Clinical Psychologists meeting people with lived experiences, shadowing diagnostic interviews and observing therapeutic interventions. This helped me to gain a deeper and more practical understanding of the diagnoses related to my PhD such as Tics, Tourette’s, bodily focused repetitive behaviours and anxiety.
Brief description of the research project for which grant was awarded: The research visit fostered a collaboration for an extension of my ongoing PhD project to a clinical population which will now form as additional analyses to a research article in preparation and as part of my thesis. As part of the research stay, I was also able to receive training in administering clinical diagnostic tools to screen prospective participants.
Brief description of the outcome of the research project: I have gained many valuable outcomes from the research visit funded by the TRiSS research fellowship. First, I was able to present work from my PhD which has aided my research dissemination and communication skills. Second, I was able to develop and outline a plan to extended my current PhD project to collect data from a group of clinically diagnosed individuals which will provide more comprehensive findings and improve the strength of the research article. Lastly, to end on my visit highlight, I was able to meet people with diagnoses of interest related to my PhD. This visit has broadened my mind to address the mechanistic gaps in the development of these conditions but equally as important to address the concerns of those with lived experience.