science

Leonora O'Brien

Leonora O'Brien is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Leonora O'Brien rather than just read about it. In short: Leonora O'Brien is an Irish pharmacist and entrepreneur. Having worked in pharmacy regulation, she was the founder and chief executive officer of Pharmapod, a cloud-platform for pharmacists and physicians to monitor safety of dispensing processes and drive the safe dispensing of medicines.

Key takeaways

Leonora O'Brien belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Leonora O'Brien to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Leonora O'Brien from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Leonora O'Brien is an Irish pharmacist and entrepreneur. Having worked in pharmacy regulation, she was the founder and chief executive officer of Pharmapod, a cloud-platform for pharmacists and physicians to monitor safety of dispensing processes and drive the safe dispensing of medicines. O'Brien has won a number of awards for her business endeavours and is a leading voice in the field of women in business.

Early life and career O'Brien was born in Castlerea, County Roscommon. O'Brien qualified as a pharmacist. She worked in pharmacy regulation and policy development in both Ireland and the European Union. She moved out of pharmacy regulation into the private sector in 2012, having noticed a gap in the market for inter-pharmacy interaction.

Pharmapod O'Brien developed the business case for Pharmapod in the 12-week-long LaunchPad entrepreneur hub at the National Digital Research Centre (NDRC) in Dublin in early 2012. O'Brien founded Pharmapod in November 2012, as an online tool which assists pharmaceutical dispensaries (including doctors) to keep track of and report anomalies, which can cause fatalities. By 2014, Pharmapod was operating in Ireland, the United Kingdom (in a deal with the NHS) and Kenya (a focus was put on the developing world, where the product was considered very useful, especially with a view to capturing trends in counterfeit medicines), with an employee base of 10 people. Seeking up to €5 million in December 2014, by the end of 2017, Pharmapod had raised over €1.8 million in capital, with both institutional and angel investors.

Awards and prizes €5,000 prize fund at the Tech Entrepreneurs workshop in Dublin as part of the European Digital Agenda Assembly, June 2013 European Laureate Cartier Women's Initiative Awards 2013 (€20,000). (First Irish women to have been nominated in the category) Image magazine Entrepreneur of the Year

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Leonora O'Brien

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Leonora O'Brien claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Leonora O'Brien before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Leonora O'Brien ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Leonora O'Brien

In research: Leonora O'Brien appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Leonora O'Brien in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Leonora O'Brien is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 20th-century Irish businesspeople, 20th-century Irish businesswomen, 21st-century Irish businesspeople, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Leonora O'Brien outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Leonora O'Brien in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Leonora O'Brien means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Leonora O'Brien out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Leonora O'Brien in simple terms?

Why does Leonora O'Brien matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Leonora O'Brien?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Leonora O'Brien.