Dr. Éilish Burke

Ussher Assistant Professor, School of Nursing & Midwifery, Trinity College

Éilish Burke RGN RNID BNS MSc. PhD. completed her PhD in March 2016, during her studies she achieved a number of awards including Postgraduate of the year 2016 and was appointed as the Ussher Assistant Professor in Ageing and Intellectual Disability, Trinity College Dublin in September 2016. Éilish originally trained as a general nurse and through her volunteer work with the Special Olympics she developed an interest in intellectual disability (ID). She trained as a Registered Nurse Intellectual Disability and has worked in the field for over 25 years. Éilish completed her Masters in Trinity and joined the IDS-TILDA team as a research assistant in 2010. Éilish served as Project Manager from 2011-2016, whilst continuing to play an integral role in IDS-TILDA she is now Ussher Assistant Professor in Ageing and ID in the School of Nursing and Midwifery with her research based with IDS-TILDA. Her specific area of interest is bone health and health assessment with her related research interests include physical health and wellbeing, inclusionary methods of healthcare screening and healthcare engagement, accessible health promotion and promoting research involvement of people with intellectual disability. Her research is situated within the Intellectual Disability Supplement to The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (IDS-TILDA) where she has worked for 10 years. She designed an accessible health assessment in 2013 and led its roll out in Wave's 2 and now in Wave 4 of the IDS-TILDA study. Dr. Burke is leading the physical health theme of the Trinity Center for Ageing and Intellectual Disability (TCAID) and is guiding the future focus of this theme. Administratively Dr. Burke is the Associate Director of TCAID and the Director of the Masters in Ageing Health and Wellbeing in Intellectual Disability which is a new and unique course she designed which is research led and under pinned by the IDS-TILDA study. Dr Burke is a committed teacher and has been involved in education throughout her career. Her contribution to education and the profession has included co-ordination and development of modules and courses at undergraduate and post graduate level and she is currently the external examiner at Queens University Belfast. She is a member of the International Association for the Scientific Study of Intellectual and Developmental Disability, as well as the International Osteoporosis Foundation and the Irish Osteoporosis Society. She sits on the Quality Improvement HSE working group, the HSE Affinity ID working group and the Camphill Communities of Ireland Ethics committee. In response to the recent COVID19 pandemic Dr Burke lead the design of an online educational programme for carer's in ID services on recognition and assessment of COVID 19 among those with intellectual disability in collaboration with the HSE and the Office of the Nursing and Midwifery Services Director.