Dr. Fergal O'Brien is the Director of Postgraduate Programmes and a Lecturer in Finance at the Kemmy Business School, University of Limerick. He completed his PhD "An Empirical Investigation of FTSE 100 ESX and S&P 500 SPX Equity Index Option Returns" at Lancaster University in 2007. Dr. O'Brien's MBS thesis was awarded the Guinness Irish Management Institute Sir Charles Harvey Award in 1999. Dr. O'Brien has published in the areas of finance and graduate career progression in journals such as Derivatives Use, Trading and Regulation, Irish Accounting Review and Personnel Review. Dr O'Brien is on the Course Board for the MSc in Computational Finance.

Dr. O'Brien is undertaking research primarily in the area of derivative instruments and specifically investigating the profitability of option trading strategies, the returns to horse racing wagers and the ability of forward-looking systematic moments to explain asset returns.