ProfessorNicola Fletcher

Nicola Fletcher is a Professor at the School of Veterinary Medicine and a Fellow of the Conway Institute, UCD. She first trained as a scientist, with a BSc from the University of Limerick, followed by a year working in viral diagnostics at the Irish Equine Centre. Her PhD, supervised by Prof. Sean Callanan and Prof. David Brayden at UCD, developed an in vitro blood-brain barrier for the study of feline immunodeficiency virus neuropathology. She continued this work as a Science Foundation Ireland postdoctoral researcher until 2009. She then moved to the University of Birmingham to work with Prof. Jane McKeating, investigating the ability of hepatitis C to infect the brain and the role of the host immune system in this process. While at Birmingham, she worked closely with clinician scientists, and was inspired by their clinical approach to research, so in 2014 she took a four year break from research to study veterinary medicine as a Graduate Entry student at UCD. Once she qualified as a veterinary surgeon in 2018, she moved to the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA-Weybridge) in the UK, and conducted research studies investigating economically important infectious diseases including rabies, African and classical swine fever, influenza, Newcastle disease, hepatitis E, tuberculosis and prion diseases in high level biocontainment. In 2020 she joined UCD as an Ad Astra fellow and was promoted to Professor in 2026.

Professor Fletcher's current research is focused on a One Health approach to to investigate hepatitis E virus, an emerging zoonotic viral disease that is of increasing importance as a cause of acute hepatitis. She also investigates other zoonotic viral infections including tick borne encephalitis virus and other flaviviruses, and SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 disease. She is a member of the steering group of the National Wastewater Surveillance Programme which monitors pathogens in Irish wastewater.  Her research is funded by EU Horizon 2020, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM), and she also co-ordinates an ERC Synergy project, NanoX. She has competed SUSTAIN, a programme run by the Academy of Medical Sciences to train and support female researchers in their independent research careers, and THRIVE, a leadership course run by 64 Million Artists. She is a member of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, Sheep Veterinary Society and a Diplomate of the Royal College of Pathologists (DipRCPath). She is a Board member of the Veterinary Council of Ireland.