ProfessorWalter McNicholas

PROFESSOR WALTER MCNICHOLAS MD, FRCPI, FERS is Newman Clinical Research Professor in the School of Medicine at University College Dublin (UCD) and Consultant in Respiratory Sleep Medicine at St. Vincent’s Hospital Group, Dublin. He is a medical graduate of UCD and undertook his postgraduate training in Respiratory and Sleep Medicine at the University of Toronto. Walter is a Research Fellow at the UCD Conway Research Institute and is part of a multidisciplinary research group based in St. Vincent’s and the Conway Institute, which collaborates with other groups within UCD and throughout Europe. His research interests include the pathophysiology, treatment and outcomes of obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome (OSA), in addition to sleep disturbances in COPD and other chronic respiratory disorders. He is also closely involved in the evaluation of novel ambulatory monitoring devices for respiration and sleep disorders and is active in public health policy around driving risk in patients with OSA and sleepiness. He has supervised many PhD and other Masters and Doctoral research students over the past 30 years in his research laboratory at UCD and St. Vincent’s. In 1985, he established the first, and still the largest, clinical sleep service in Ireland, which includes a dedicated sleep laboratory providing facilities for polysomnography, multiple sleep latency testing and other sleep-related clinical investigations.

Walter is a current Associate Editor of the ERJ Open Research Journal, and is past Associate Editor of the European Respiratory Journal. He has published over 300 PubMed-listed papers in International Peer-reviewed Journals (h-index: 90). Walter has held many Leadership positions in National and International organisations. He was President of the European Sleep Research Society from 2016-2020, President of the European Respiratory Society from 2003-2004, and President of the European Board of Accreditation in Pneumology from 2010-2014. He chaired an EU-sponsored COST Action (B26) on Obstructive Sleep Apnoea (2005-2010) that led to the establishment of the European Sleep Apnoea Database Cohort Study (ESADA), which is now the largest cohort study of its kind in the world with over 40,000 patients. Walter also chaired a Working Group established by the Transport and Mobility Directorate of the European Commission on Sleep Apnoea and Driving (2012-2013), which led to an official EU Directive on this topic, issued in June 2014, that is now mandatory throughout all EU member states. He is an Executive Committee member and Work Package Leader of the 15 million euro EU Horizon 2020 funded research project "Sleep Revolution"