Dr Eleanor Rainsford is a Lecturer and a Principal Investigator of the Medical & Engineering Technologies Gateway in the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology. Dr Rainsford completed her BSc in Biomedical Science and subsequently completed her PhD in UCD in 1999 in the area of human T-cell immunology. Dr Rainsford joined the lecturing staff of GMIT in 2004 having worked in clinical haematology laboratories for the previous 12 years.
Since then her research interests have expanded to include the investigation of thrombus formation and her current areas of interest include the characterisation of thrombi for informing the development of medical devices. The composition of thrombi is one of the key factors that influences the efficacy of treatment strategies for ischemic stroke patients. Work in this area is being carried out in collaboration with Neuravi, a prominent medical device company, and a number of vascular surgeons.