Richéal completed a doctoral degree programme in 2013 at NUI Galway focusing on several economic evaluation methods for assessing the costs and benefits of introducing screening for prostate cancer in Ireland. This project was funded by the Health Research Board and managed by the National Cancer Registry Ireland. Upon completion, Richéal worked as a senior researcher in applied health economics from 2013-2017 at the Health Economics Research Centre (HERC), University of Oxford. Richéal both assisted and led the health economic evaluation on several RCTs as well as collaborated on burden of illness studies and methodological development in the area of health economic research. While at HERC, Richéal also lectured on the MSc in Global Health Sciences, taught on HERC short courses in applied methods in health economics and assisted in the development and delivery of HERC bespoke training courses for the pharmaceutical industry and for conference workshops. Richéal has been involved in freelance consultancy since 2011 and has been involved in reimbursement submissions for pharmaceuticals in Ireland and the UK, as well as HTA and early HTA assessments for medical devices and diagnostics.
Richéal is particularly passionate about highlighting the need for and benefits of health economics scoping and assessment in the early phases of clinical trials.
Richéal has published over 35 papers in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings; presented her research at 25 conferences; and is currently involved in research in the areas of prostate cancer, brain tumours, organ transplantation, inflammatory bowel disease and Autism. She is also an expert reviewer for the National Institute for Health Research HTA Programme and the UK Transplant Library, as well as several clinical and health economic international journals.