Dr. Richard Fitzgerald
National University of Ireland Galway (NUIG)
Ireland
Richard has a long assocaition with AquaTT, back to its foundation in 1991/92, when he compiled and submitted the original application for EU funding to establish the company. He was the first Chair of the Company and has served on the Board regularly over the past 20 years.
A zoologist by training, he was awarded his PhD for work on ecological interactions of fish-parasite communities but also holds qualifications in Business (MBA) and in Finance. He has been involved in Research and Development in Aquaculture for almost 30 years in a variety of roles and posts. In the 1980s, he worked as Technical Director with a salmon farming company owned by the State Venture Capital agency and thereafter, for a decade through the 1990s, he managed and led research efforts at the Aquaculture Development Centre in UCC. In 2000, he established and managed a specialist seafood company until 2006. He joined NUI Galway in 2006/7 as a Senior Research Fellow, and, currently, he manages the Carna Research Station of the Ryan Institute. He has served as a member of State Boards, Agencies and representative/consultative fora and trade organisations both Nationally and Internationally.
He has wide research interests including the growth performance of finfish in response to critical rearing conditions and husbandry practices; growth modelling; feed utilisation and formation of social hierarchies in farmed fish populations; the development of novel dietary formulations for farmed fish; the immuno-competence of farmed stocks; and product characteristics and quality. Presently, he is Project Co-ordinator for the EIRCOD project which is the cod breeding and broodstock programme for the Irish Aquaculture industry funded under the Sea Change Strategy with the support of the Marine Institute and Marine research Sub-prog of the NDP with ERDF funding. He has published over 30 peer-reviewed papers and 100+ technical reports. Richard has served as an external examiner at under- and post-graduate (MSc & PhD) levels in Ireland and several EU countires.