Headshot of Cian O’Donnell.

Cian O’Donnell

Lecturer in data analytics
Ulster University

Cian O’Donnell is a computational neuroscientist and lecturer in data analytics at Ulster University. His group works on the mechanisms of learning and memory, autism, and developing statistical methods for neuroscience data.

He earned his B.Sc. in applied physics at Dublin City University, followed by his M.Sc. and Ph.D. in neuroinformatics at the University of Edinburgh. He spent three years as a postdoctoral fellow at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, before returning to the United Kingdom in 2015 as a lecturer and then senior lecturer at the University of Bristol. In 2021, he moved to Ulster University in Derry, Northern Ireland.

From this contributor

Explore more from The Transmitter

Hands cut a ribbon.

What Trump’s psychedelics executive order means for basic neuroscience

The order provides a potential path to remove some psychedelic drugs from the strictest regulatory category, yet it “may not be the breakthrough the basic research community has been looking for,” says neuroscientist Shawn Lockery.

By Calli McMurray
24 April 2026 | 4 min read
Research image visualizing neuronal activity.

Switching neural code may solve ongoing face-recognition debate

Face patch cells in macaque monkeys initially respond to images of any object but rapidly transition to attend to faces exclusively, a new study finds.

By Holly Barker
23 April 2026 | 5 min read

Liset de la Prida explains how neuron subtypes may control the activity of large neural populations, from manifolds to ripples

De la Prida's work analyzing the varieties of sharp wave ripples in the hippocampus led to her discovery that specific types of neurons control the properties of neural manifolds.

By Paul Middlebrooks
22 April 2026 | 104 min listen