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Dr. Colm Delaney

Assistant Professor (Chemistry)
      
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Dr. Colm Delaney

Assistant Professor (Chemistry)

 CDELANE5@tcd.ie

 


Colm is Assistant Professor of Inorganic and Materials Chemistry at the University of Dublin, Trinity College Dublin. He is an emerging leader in the field of sensing, bio-diagnostics, microfluidics, and materials development. After completing his PhD in 2016 in Trinity College Dublin, under the supervision of Prof. Sylvia Draper, he took a Postdoctoral role at Dublin City University. During this time, he served as scientific coordinator of an FP7 Project, lead researcher and co-applicant on a Technology Innovation Development Award (TIDA) and directed a research project in conjunction with Air-Force Research Laboratories (USA) and GE Global Research. From December 2018 he led a research group at University College Dublin. In October 2020 he returned to TCD upon receiving a 2-year Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Research Fellowship entitled `Bio-Inspired Photonic Sensors". In 2021, Colm was awarded a MSCA International Fellowship at University of Cambridge. In 2022, he accepted a position as Assistant Professor in the School of Chemistry, TCD and received a prestigious ERC Starting Grant to establish his own research group in the School of Chemistry and AMBER Centre, Trinity College Dublin. Colm's research draws on inspiration from natural systems that have perfected the ability to morph their colour, visibility, and reflectivity, to camouflage, signal, mimic, distract, and regulate biological processes. The group will use this approach to generate structural colours, multiple band-gap materials, invisible patterns upon polarisation, angle (in)dependent colours, and optical stimuli-responsive behaviour that can compete with natural systems. They advance these models to demonstrate wireless manipulation using light, heat, or vapour, camouflaging and encryption, and the ability to monitor, sense, and diagnose by discriminative optical sensing in gaseous and liquid states.
Details Date From Date To
Affiliate Member of the American Chemical Society 2019 present
Associate Member of the Royal Society of Chemistry 2010 present
Delente, Jason M., Kolagatla, Srikanth, Lopez-Larrea, Naroa, Criado-Gonzalez, Miryam, Carlotti, Marco, Rodriguez, Brian J., Delaney, Colm, Mecerreyes, David, Mattoli, Virgilio, Florea, Larisa, Fabrication of 3D PEDOT:PSS composite microstructures via two-photon polymerisation, Journal of Materials Chemistry C, 2026, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
McKiernan, Eoin P., Ennis, Alexa, Delaney, Colm, Florea, Larisa, Brougham, Dermot F., Polymer/iron-oxide nanocomposite adsorbents for cycled magnetically-enabled extraction of aqueous micropollutants, RSC Sustainability, 2026, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
Maher, Daniel, Piekarczyk, Marcin, Sützl, Stefan, Vilella, Andreu Murillo, Fiechter, Marc, Tskhe, Yekaterina, Delaney, Colm, Taboryski, Rafael, Florea, Larisa, Bunea, Ada"Ioana, Multimaterial Microrobots for pH Sensing Fabricated Using Sequential 3D and 4D Printing with Automated Alignment, Advanced Materials Technologies, 11, (2), 2026, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
Jing Qian, Yekaterina Tskhe, A. Louise Bradley, Larisa Florea, and Colm Delaney, A Robust pH Sensing Module Utilizing Reproducible Structural Colour Fabricated by Two-Photon Polymerisation, EOSAM 2025, 2025, Conference Paper, PUBLISHED  TARA - Full Text  DOI
Izaddoust, Sepideh, Poves-Ruiz, Isabel, Hualde, Enrique Azuaje, Patko, Daniel, Florea, Larisa, Delaney, Colm, Basabe-Desmonts, Lourdes, Benito-Lopez, Fernando, Present and future of smart functional materials as actuators in microfluidic devices, Lab on a Chip, 25, (23), 2025, p6075-6099 , Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
Faraone, Teodora, Qian, Jing, Kolagatla, Srikanth, Bradley, A. Louise, Florea, Larisa, Delaney, Colm, Direct Laser Writing of Polymer Nanocomposites for Tunable Structural Color, Advanced Materials, 37, (43), 2025, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
Lázaro, Isabel Abánades and Anastasaki, Athina and Ardoña, Herdeline Ann M. and Arguilla, Maxx Q. and Bati, Abdulaziz S.R. and Batmunkh, Munkhbayar and Besford, Quinn A. and Browne, Michelle P. and Bryant, Saffron J. and Carlotti, Marco and Contini, Claudia and Delaney, Colm and Draper, Emily R. and Elbourne, Aaron and Evans, Jack D. and Florea, Larisa and Forner-Cuenca, Antoni and Forse, Alexander C. and Gonzalez, Miguel I. and Krause, Simon and Lee, Hiang Kwee and Lerch, Michael M. and Liu, Shi and López-Salas, Nieves and Martin-Martinez, Francisco J. and Pezzato, Cristian and Protesescu, Loredana and Schaufelberger, Fredrik and Pascual, Paula Sebastián and Fernández, Aránzazu Sierra and Tarpeh, William A. and Vilé, Gianvito and von Krbek, Larissa K.S. and Wang, Hongzhang and Wu, Tailin and Wells, Connor J.R. and Cranford, Steven W., 35 challenges in materials science being tackled by PIs under 35(ish) in 2024, Matter, 7, (11), 2024, p3699 â€" 3706 , Notes: [Cited by: 0; All Open Access, Green Open Access], Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
Augustine, A. and Qian, J. and Faraone, T. and Kolagatla, S. and Prochukhan, N. and Morris, M.A. and Bradley, A.L. and Florea, L. and Delaney, C., Direct Laser Writing of Silica Nanoparticle Nanocomposites: Probing Mechanical Reinforcement and Understanding Structural Color from Design Parameters, Small, 2024, Notes: [cited By 0], Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
Qian, J. and Kolagatla, S. and Pacalova, A. and Zhang, X. and Florea, L. and Delaney, C. and Bradley, A.L., TPL-fabricated responsive hydrogel-based micro photonic structures for visible vapor sensing, SPIE Organic Photonics + Electronics, 2023, 12663, (1266304), 2023, Notes: [cited By 0], Conference Paper, PUBLISHED  DOI
Qian, Jing and Kolagatla, Srikanth and Zhang, Xia and Florea, Larisa and Delaney, Colm and Bradley, A. Louise, Novel applications based on dynamic color of photonic structures printed by two-photon lithography, Novel Optical Materials and Applications 2023, 2023, Notes: [Cited by: 0], Conference Paper, PUBLISHED
  

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Colm DELANEY, Larisa Elena FLOREA, Danielle BRUEN, Dermot Diamond, 'Boronic acid derivatives for diol-sensing hydrogels', , 2018, 17 January 2023, Patent, GRANTED

  


Award Date
European Research Council Starting Awardee 2023
Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship Awardee 2021
Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellowship Awardee 2020
Best presentation given by an Early Career Researcher, 2022 MRS Fall Meeting, Hawaii, USA, entitled "Direct Laser Writing of Bioinspired Functional Materials" 2022
Dublin City University Commercialisation Awardee - Awarded for successful international collaboration with UES & GE Global Research under the NBMC Consortium 2016
TCD Demonstrator of the Year Awardee 2015
TCD Runner-up BOC Gases Prize Awardee 2015
TCD Runner-up Dorgan Prize Awardee 2015
TCD Demonstrator of the Year Award 2013
My research focuses on using synthetic chemistry, molecular design and characterisation to generate novel functional materials, such as high refractive index nano materials, stimuli-responsive polymers, ionic liquids and poly(ionic liquids), and combines this with 3D fabrication techniques, such as direct light projection and direct laser writing to generate novel nanostructured materials, molecular sensors and dynamic photonic devices.