Meet our team

Aileen Igoe

Originally an architect, Aileen first entered the world of healthcare in 2011 when she was working with a design firm on a major hospital development at the Mater Hospital. She quickly became interested in the interdependence between spatial design and work systems. Recognising the potential in this space, Aileen undertook advanced studies in  process engineering with further training in innovation and leadership in healthcare. She spent the next ten years working with teams to deeply understand and fundamentally reconfigure systems and services in the healthcare sector.

In her current role as Lean and System Redesign Lead, she applies a systems and process lens to Mater Transformation's improvement work and uses her years of design experience to bring about sustainable, workable solutions that have the user at heart. As an adjunct associate professor at UCD Health Systems, Aileen teaches and mentors on the Mater Lean Academy process improvement programmes.

Siobhan Manning

Siobhan has been working at the intersection of innovation and healthcare since 2011 when she managed the roll-out of the Productive Operating Theatre programme at the Mater. In 2013, she joined Mater Transformation, ultimately becoming Lead for Service Innovation & Design.

Siobhan is passionate about the opportunities that emerge when people and ideas from different backgrounds come together to solve problems. In 2016, Siobhan piloted a collaboration with the National College of Art and Design (NCAD) to explore what value human centred design might add to Mater Transformation’s work. The collaboration has grown exponentially since then as healthcare teams recognise the value that design brings through its strong focus on human factors, intuition, risk taking and creativity.

Siobhan’s interest in innovation in healthcare stems from diverse sources.  On completion of a Masters in International Marketing, she worked with Enterprise Ireland in Silicon Valley, supporting Irish tech start-ups in driving new business opportunities in the US market. She then returned to Ireland to train as a speech and language therapist and worked at the frontline of healthcare for 12 years before joining Mater Transformation full time in 2013.

Alison Dingle

Alison is Systems Integration Lead at Mater Transformation.  With a Masters in Healthcare Management and having worked extensively as a healthcare planner across a number of hospital sites to reconfigure and plan their campus. Alison has experience amalgamating existing, disparate systems to be more streamlined and cohesive. She is a highly skilled business/data analyst utilising the best available data to inform strategic master planning. She is also passionate about design in healthcare, having first qualified as a graphic designer.

Alan MacFarlane

Joining us in 2021, Alan is one of our first designers to work at Mater Transformation. His work focuses on deploying design thinking and research to develop holistic solutions within the constraints of complex systems and environments that improve the lives of patients and healthcare workers.

Alan’s commitment to co-design and fostering design thinking amongst healthcare staff has led to a variety of successful projects, many of which have emerged out of the Mater Hospital’s close collaboration with the National College of Art and Design (NCAD).  He is particularly proud of his work on StrokeLINK, a nurse-led service for stroke patients that extends care beyond the hospital, through paper and digital support tools.

Alan’s journey into design in healthcare began in 2019. While completing a Masters in Interaction Design at NCAD, Alan discovered the profound impact of design in health and became passionate about designing for social good.

Prior to this, Alan worked as a product designer for consumer products and architectural domains. In 2016, Alan graduated from NCAD with BDes (Hons) in Industrial Design, where in his final year he received an RSA Design Award and fellowship at the RSA in London.

Dr Sean Paul Teeling

Sean Paul is an assistant professor in UCD Health Systems, programme, director and co-founder of the Mater Lean Academy (MLA) and developer of the fundamentals, professional and graduate certificate programmes. A UCD University Teaching Excellence Award winner, he enjoys teaching and mentoring healthcare professionals, and facilitating impactful and sustainable person-centred process improvements.  

Sean Paul’s extensive clinical experience as a nurse led him to the role of clinical planner to the Mater Campus Hospital Development and as part of this he was actively involved in the development of training. He is a Lean Master Black Belt and initiated the rollout of change initiatives and consolidation of projects for the Mater Hospital.

Sean Paul holds a PhD in Person-Centred Improvement and is an honorary lecturer and member of the Centre for Person-Centred Practice Research at QMU Edinburgh. He is a founding member of the UCD Centre for Interdisciplinary Research, Education and Innovation in Health Systems and has served as a member of the advisory committee on medical devices, as appointed by the Minister for Health.

Michelle McGuirk

Michelle is an improvement facilitator, joining the Mater Transformation team in 2013.  She has a background in biotechnology where she gained her analytical and process engineering skills. She started her career in healthcare in medication safety, implementing change to prevent drug errors.

She is passionate about problem solving on the frontline in healthcare through education, empathy and insight.  She is skilled at breaking down complex systems, facilitating staff through small tests of change, bringing persistence and people focus to help make new ways of working a reality. Her attention to detail and use of data in an accessible and pragmatic way helps drive lasting change.

She teaches on the UCD and Mater Lean Academy programmes and has mentored numerous green belt teams on  projects in the public, private and primary care sector. Her work has been published in quality journals. She has a Bachelor’s degree from DCU, a Masters. from TU Dublin and Graduate Diploma in  for Healthcare with black belt from UCD.

Vanessa Kelly

Vanessa has been the Mater Lean Academy administrator since 2017. She schedules, promotes and plans the academy programmes and events. She also manages the social media accounts for both the Mater Lean Academy & Mater Transformation.

She began working as a healthcare administrator in 2011, working across a number of clinical specialties with the chief operating officer, where she gained an in-depth knowledge of the challenges in delivering hospital services. This inspired her to undertake a Professional Certificate in Process Improvement with UCD Mater Lean Academy.  She now supports the Lean Academy improvement facilitators with their teaching and individual projects and workshops. She finds the healthcare sector both challenging and rewarding. She has a very person centred approach to her work, having previously worked as a nutritionist.

Lena Dornan

Lena is the operations manager of the office. Her primary degree is BBS specialising in HR and IR.  Lena's interests include Data Science/Analytics, process reengineering and she holds a Masters in Science, specialising in Health Informatics.  She brings a diverse skillset to the team with experience from health and industrial sectors in Ireland and abroad.