Headshot of Mary Doherty.

Mary Doherty

Consultant anaesthetist
Our Lady’s Hospital, Navan, Ireland

Mary Doherty is an autistic consultant anesthesiologist based in Ireland, an honorary clinical research fellow at Brighton & Sussex Medical School in the United Kingdom, and a Ph.D. student at London South Bank University. She is also the mother of two neurodivergent young people.

Doherty is founder of Autistic Doctors International and Autistic Med Students, both dedicated to peer support, advocacy, research and training. She has been involved with biomedical autism research for several years, as a member of the AIMS-2-Trials Autism Representatives Steering Committee and more recently the Participatory Research Advisory Committee for the RESPECT 4 Neurodevelopment Network.

Her research interests include health care for autistic adults and the experiences of autistic medical students and doctors. Her doctoral research focuses on the experiences and perspectives of autistic psychiatrists.

From this contributor

Explore more from The Transmitter

Illustration of rolling dice.

Grant review needs reform. How about we add an element of chance?

A process that uses a lottery system saves time, reduces strategic resubmission and accepts that, above a quality threshold, luck has always played a part in science funding.

By Adrien Peyrache
25 September 2026 | 6 min read
Research diagram of gene expression.

Fly neurons carry molecular signatures of their origins

The pattern of transcription factors a Drosophila neuron expresses offers clues to its lineage and birth order—and ultimately how neural circuits emerge.

By Alissa de Chassey
25 September 2026 | 5 min read
Cortical organoids from the anterior (green) or posterior (red) cortex.

Polarized cortical organoids mimic the brain’s regional organization

The organoids show region-specific gene-expression changes that match those observed during fetal development.

By Holly Barker
24 September 2026 | 4 min read