Ruairí O'Reilly

Ruairí O'Reilly

Lecturer in Computer Science at Munster Technological University. Research on trustworthy AI: explainable and fair AI, generative AI, and human factors, applied in healthcare.

Prospective Students

I supervise research students at three levels at Munster Technological University. This page says what I supervise, how each route works, and what to send me.

What I supervise

  • Explainable and fair AI: evaluating explanations, auditing models for bias, fairness across patient subgroups
  • Generative AI: training and evaluating generative models, judging the quality of AI-generated content, agentic systems
  • Human factors and affective computing: emotion, personality and stress from physiological and behavioural data
  • Software architecture for AI-intensive systems: distributed and cloud-native platforms, reproducible ML pipelines

Most of the applied work is in healthcare. You do not need a healthcare background, but you do need to be comfortable programming and willing to read papers.

Routes

PhD and research master’s

A PhD is three to four years of full-time research. I am happy to talk to anyone with a strong degree in computer science or a related discipline and an interest in one of the areas above.

I do not always have a funded position open. Previous students have been funded through the SFI ADVANCE Centre for Research Training and MTU’s Rísam scholarship programme. The Research Ireland Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship is another route, and I will support a strong application with a well-matched proposal. If funding matters to you, say so in your first email so we can plan around the deadlines.

M.Sc. dissertation

I supervise dissertations for students already registered on MTU’s taught M.Sc. programmes, mainly Software Architecture & Design and Artificial Intelligence. Get in touch early in the semester before your project starts. Come with a problem you care about, or ask me for current topics.

Final-year project (B.Sc.)

I take a small number of final-year projects each year from MTU Computer Science students. Projects that connect to the research areas above work best, and good ones can go further than the module: recent projects have led to a conference paper and a best-poster award.

Getting in touch

Email ruairi.oreilly@mtu.ie with:

  1. Which route you are asking about, and when you want to start
  2. Your CV and transcripts (PhD applicants)
  3. A few paragraphs on what you want to work on and why, naming one of my papers that is close to it
  4. A link to something you have built or written: a repository, a dissertation, a report

I read every specific email. Generic messages sent to many academics usually go unanswered.

What past students have done

  • All three completed PhD students published in international journals during their studies, including Artificial Intelligence Review, IEEE Open Journal of the Computer Society and the Journal of Personality.
  • M.Sc. dissertations have been published in the Journal of Open Source Software and at the ISSC and AICS conferences.
  • A 2026 final-year project won Best Poster at AI in Health 2026, Imperial College London.

Names and project titles are on the Teaching & Supervision page.