Declan is the Director of  the Polymer, Recycling, Sustainability, Industrial and Manufacturing (PRISM) Research Institute at the Technological University of the Shannon (TUS), which incorporates both the Enterprise Ireland-funded APT Technology Gateway and the Centre for Industrial Services and Design. He holds a BEng (2000) and PhD (2006) in polymer engineering from Athlone Institute of Technology. Prior to taking up this role, Declan has fulfilled a variety of roles both nationally and internationally. These roles include an industry based post-doctoral with Transitions Optical, a Senior Project Leader at the AO Research Institute in Switzerland and fellowships in both Harvard Medical Schools Center for Advanced Orthopaedic Studies and the Mayo Clinic’s Rehabilitation Medicine Center as a part of his ERA Marie Curie Fellowship.

Declan is currently an academic director of the APT centre and is a funded investigator on the SFI funded CONFIRM centre for smart manufacturing, Amber centre for Advanced Biomaterials and the Cúram Medical Device Centre. His current research interests centre on the development of materials for biomedical applications such as bone regenerations and biodegradable polymer stents, structural thermoplastic composites and polymer based Smart Manufacturing. Decaln has published in the fields of controlled release, medical device coatings, 3D printing scaffolds biodegradable polymers, additive manufacturing and bone regeneration. He maintains several collaborations in these fields across the EU and at international centres located in the USA, Canada, Brazil and Switzerland.