"Dementia touches all of our lives and that of our family and friends. I’m delighted to help enable our talented researchers and the UK DRI in the global mission to stop dementia." Barbara G Hehir
UK DRI Director of Human Resources
Roles & Responsibilities: supporting the Institute in all HR related matters including attracting, appointing and developing the best talent in the world and leading on the Institute’s diversity strategy to diversify the talent pipeline in dementia research. Promoting engagement, wellbeing and employee experience across the Institute and working in partnership with our six university hosts and the UK DRI Ltd Board of Trustees.
Following a BSc from University of Galway, Barbara spent two years at Environmental Resources Analysis/Maptec Ltd, an on-campus start-up consultancy at Trinity College Dublin, working on international projects such as satellite image processing, groundwater mapping, core logging, reconnaissance mapping, app development and desk-based research. As a geophysicist in the UK, Barbara worked for Halliburton, Western Geophysical and Schlumberger WesternGeco, on marine hydrocarbon exploration projects, with secondments to Stavanger Norway and Houston Texas. Career transition to HR included roles at Bedford Hospital NHS Trust, South West London and St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust, the MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences / Imperial College Institute of Clinical Sciences, The Lindo Wing private hospital and partnering the C-suite directors/Trust Board at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust.
Barbara joined the UK DRI in March 2022 following three years at King’s College London as a senior HR consultant to Executive Deans in the accredited start-up/scale up King’s Business School and the 200-year-old Dickson Poon School of Law.
Barbara completed a CIPD accredited Post Graduate Diploma in People Management and Development and in 2012 was awarded Chartered Membership of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (MCIPD). An MA in Strategic Human Resource Management and Development followed in 2015, with a thesis focusing on science research career development and diversity in the talent pipeline as a business imperative.
Growing up on a small farm in the west of Ireland, not far from the Atlantic Ocean, Barbara enjoys reading, culture, the countryside, fresh air and seaside walks.
