Paul graduated from UCC with a BSc and PhD in Microbiology and lectured at CIT and UCC before being appointed as a Principal Research Officer, and then a Senior Principal Research Officer, at Teagasc Food Research Centre, where he also manages the Irish Next Generation Sequencing platform. Paul is now Head of the Food Biosciences Department at Teagasc.

Paul Cotter’s research has significantly impacted the field of microbial ecology, particularly in the context of agri-food microbiology and human microbiomes. More specifically, his focus has been on understanding the composition, function, and interactions of microbial communities in environments, such as fermented foods (FFs) and the human gut, including the transfer of microbes from one niche to another (e.g., from mothers to their infants). Paul Cotter’s contributions to the development of a greater understanding of the composition of FFs from across the globe has also facilitated the design and creation of defined communities of FF starters that are optimised with respect to health benefits or other characteristics. He has also extensively studied the impacts of other modulators, including non-FFs and food ingredients, antimicrobials, and other factors, such as exercise, on gut and other human microbiomes and health. Paul’s complementary work with LAB and associated bacteriocins (antimicrobial peptides) has included a focus on the discovery, identification, characterisation and engineering of bacteriocins and their applications of relevance to food preservation and human health. Paul Cotter’s research has resulted in numerous highly cited papers published in high impact journals such as Cell, Nature, Nature Microbiology, Nature Food, Nature Medicine, Nature Aging, Nature Protocols, Nature Communications, Nature Reviews Microbiology, Nature Reviews Gastro and Hepatol, Gut, Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, Microbiome, and others. Overview: >489 peer-reviewed papers; H index 126/100 with >68,281/>39,894 citations (Google Scholar/Web of Science).