Robert Douglas Ferguson PhD

On 22 January 2026, I was honoured to rejoin my postdoctoral research fellows as an invited speaker at the NeuroInsight 2025-26 Winter School. In my talk, I shared my experience and tips for academic interviewing and securing lecturer positions.    

New Care Tools, New Caregiving Responsibilities As people develop dementia, they increasingly depend on family carers such as their spouses, adult children, and extended relatives to help them complete everyday activities and meet their physical, cognitive, and social needs.  To cope with these changes, families affected by dementia increasingly use smart and digital assistive technologies in the home. These include everyday devices such as cellphones, computers, tablets, and smart appliances to more specialised tools such as personal sensors, alert devices, biomedical devices that track specific dimensions of a person’s health and wellbeing. But digital tools also create new tech support and information management responsibilities for family carers. Digital housekeeping refers to the responsibility for maintaining the digital infrastructure of a home similar to IT personnel in an office environment. Personal information management refers to when carers become responsible for mai...

How can Irish local libraries better support the needs of patrons living with Alzheimer's disease and dementia? We are looking to speak with community stakeholders about the role of libraries in living with Alzheimer's disease and dementia. We are interested in both the perspectives of library workers as well as those who provide information and support services for families touched by Alzheimer's and dementia. Click here for more information or to sign up for an online or telephone interview.

I learned a lot about data privacy and security at the Eyes Off Data Summit in Dublin held on 17-18 September 2025.

I recently completed University College Dublin's mandatory research integrity training at the comprehensive level.  

  I recently completed a Nature Masterclass in effective grant writing offered through the NeuroInsight MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship Program.

I was a participant at the launch and capacity-building event of UCD's Ageing Network, where scholars across UCD came together to discuss the importance of research on ageing and the service needs of older adults in Ireland. It was a pleasure to represent University College Dublin's School of Information Studies in brainstorming and networking activities.