Mary Josephine McIvor (formerly Morton) was awarded a 2:1 BSc (Hons) Molecular Science from the Open University in 2008 and a PhD in the "development of novel methods for the detection of chemical and microbiological contaminants in the agri-food chain" from Queen's University Belfast in 2013. She is industry-trained with fifteen years’ experience in accredited laboratories for the pharmaceutical, food, veterinary and medical industries, with a further five years’ experience, at graduate and doctorate level, in research laboratories for academia. Her studies and work experience have given her sound knowledge and skills in cell biology, microbiology and molecular biology with particular specialism and interest in antibody-antigen interactions, immunoassay-based biosensing platforms and rapid diagnostics.

Josephine has been a Research Associate with Ulster University, Jordanstown, since March 2018, working in the advanced biomedical engineering laboratory, ‘The BioDevices Laboratory’, at the Nanotechnology and Integrated Bioengineering Centre (NIBEC) within the School of Engineering, up until September 2020. Her role was to determine the biocompatibility of novel biomaterials intended for biomedical applications and in doing so she worked between the cell biology, cell culture and nanocharacterisation laboratories at NIBEC. An important part of her role was to investigate and develop the use of Raman Spectroscopy to monitor cell function and determine its usefullness as a characterisation tool for biocompatibility over that of traditional cell biology assays. 

Josephine is now applying her knowledge and skills to her second research project within NIBEC, an ECME project, where over the next 12 months she will undertake research to create a range of novel advanced in vitro cardiac tissue models, using 3D printing and related advanced fabrication techniques, with specific emphasis on representation of the physiological function of cardiac tissue.