University of Limerick Alumni Spotlight: Laura Comber

In the latest instalment of our Alumni Spotlight series, we speak to Dr Laura Comber, a graduate of UL’s BSc Physiotherapy. After completing her PhD in the School of Allied Health at UL, Laura began her career with the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) where she is now a Deputy Director of HIQA’s Health Technology Assessment (HTA) directorate.

Laura shares her experience of studying at UL, at both undergraduate and postgraduate level, and how her childhood curiosity continued through to adulthood and to her current career. 

Tell us a bit about yourself.  

I’m a painfully proud Limerick woman (just ask my Cork colleagues) – born, reared, educated and now happily back living here after a brief sojourn in Dublin. 

Growing up I was endlessly curious – I was the child who was always asking questions and unwilling to accept anything other than a robust explanation to my aimless musings regardless of the topic. Luckily for me, I come from a family who were always, and still are, willing to tolerate this, encourage me to think broadly, and to always try and see different perspectives. In hindsight, that probably set the stage for my adult life, and I’ve essentially just found a socially acceptable adult form of constantly asking questions about things that interest me. 

After my PhD at UL, I joined the Health Technology Assessment (HTA) at HIQA where I am now a Deputy Director. It’s a role that lets me continue to ask questions and seek the most complete answer – the stakes are just a little higher now than when I was 8.  

Outside of work you’ll usually find me walking Limerick’s Three Bridges, golfing, pestering my husband about whatever topic has piqued my interest that week, or putting the world to rights with my friends over a coffee (or a glass of wine if it’s really serious). 

Why did you choose to do study Physiotherapy at UL?   

If I’m honest, it was probably mostly unplanned. Like many 17-year-olds when I filled out the CAO form, I was guided more by points and what I could get rather than giving it concentrated thought about what interested me. That said, there were a few nudges in the right direction. Both of my parents worked in health and science and in school I was only ever really interested in maths and science. 

Thankfully, it turned out to be a great fit. The BSc Physiotherapy course covered all the bases that interested me and placed a big emphasis on critical thinking and evidence-based decision-making, which gave me a really sound base for what I would go on to do.  

What did you enjoy most about the course?

The people. Physio, and broader allied health, is filled to the brim with bright, caring and genuinely kind people. From my class to the lecturers to the clinical facilitators on placements, everyone tended to be knowledgeable and exceptional at what they did but were also great fun. Even now that I don’t work in the profession anymore, I have a fierce bias when I hear that someone’s a physio, I assume they’re probably brilliant. 

Why did you decide to return to UL do a PhD? 

My decision to do a PhD was a little more intentional than my undergraduate choice – though not entirely free of chance either. 

When I finished my undergraduate, we were in pretty dicey territory in the global economy, so jobs were a little hard to come by. A lot of my class headed for sunnier lands like Australia, New Zealand and Singapore. I picked up different clinical work while I weighed my options about staying or going. On the chance front, I got offered a short research assistant role in UL on a project about older adults which then led to another one working with neurological populations. I quickly realised that research was where I should stay.

Thankfully, because now the choice was deliberate, I was funded to do a structured PhD with people with Multiple Sclerosis. The research was about falls prevention but I was encouraged to explore avenues that interested me so I took a very quantitative track, which has really stood to me in my job now. I was also encouraged to keep up clinical practice, which was great in terms of my learning, development and forcing me to put away the laptop and talk to people. 

What was the most important thing that you learned while studying at UL? 

To think critically. That should in no way be seen as thinking negatively, cynically or distrustfully. To me, it means being curious, open minded and thinking a little more deeply before forming an opinion. We’re living in a world where this is becoming a lost art, I think. 

What did you enjoy most about studying at UL? 

The autonomy that UL gives its students. Particularly during the PhD I was always encouraged to carve my own way, take modules that genuinely interested me and apply methods that I wanted to learn. As I have said, to me this meant a very quantitative track, which has really stood to me in my career. 

Are there people in UL who played a pivotal role during your time at the university?

I’m genuinely at risk of offending someone by leaving them out, because so many people gave me their time, their expertise and their patience throughout both my undergraduate and postgraduate years – UL’s people are immeasurably generous in their support of others. 

To mention a few notable people:

Professor Rose Galvin and Professor Susan Coote – my PhD supervisors who I will forever be indebted to for teaching me plenty about research but a lot more about life. And for encouraging me to fly the nest when the time was right! 

Professor Norelee Kennedy for teaching me to see the bigger picture, to recognise skills as transferable and to back myself. 

My progression panel for my second year of my PhD, which might seem like an odd one to include, but that one hour taught me more about how to handle yourself in a critical debate than any meeting, presentation or interview ever could. 

Tell us about your career journey so far and your work at HIQA.

I’m a Deputy Director in HIQA’s Health Technology Assessment (HTA) directorate. HTA can be a little bit esoteric and might not be what someone thinks of when you say HIQA. 

Our remit falls under the Health Act 2007 to evaluate the clinical and cost-effectiveness of health technologies and provide advice to the Minister for Health and the HSE.

A health technology is quite a broad term and can be defined as any intervention that may be used to promote health or to prevent, diagnose or treat a disease. That can be anything from a vaccine to a screening programme to a medical device or new diagnostic test. 

At its heart it’s about looking objectively at evidence, data and expert input to support decision-making which, in many ways, is exactly what UL was quietly training me to do without me necessarily knowing it. 

What I love about my job is that the topic is always changing, which really suits me as that hopeless curiosity from my childhood has definitely persisted. Everything we do is also linked to an impending decision about the health system in Ireland so it’s very fulfilling to feel like you’re playing a part in shaping that landscape for the better. 

I’m also very lucky to work with around 60 colleagues who are utterly brilliant at what they do and as people in general – I am a big believer that if you find your people, you’ll find your place and I have absolutely found mine. The fact that several of those colleagues are also UL grads is a bonus!  

What are your hopes and plans for the future?  

I suppose my hopes for the future probably fall into two categories – my hopes for my own future and my hopes for the future more broadly. 

On a personal level, I hope to keep enjoying what I do and to keep challenging myself to learn new things. I hope I stay curious, engaged and keep doing work that feels meaningful. I also hope to remember to always make time for the fun parts of life with my family and friends, to laugh loudly and look for the joy in things. 

From a broader perspective I really hope our world starts to settle, depolarise and leans into a more equitable and accepting society. Judging people based on inherent aspects of their identity is a complete nonsense and I can’t understand it. We could all do with being a lot kinder to each other. 

We also encourage our students to ‘Stay Curious’. What keeps you curious and how important has curiosity been in your life and career? 

I’m lucky that curiosity has always been part of my personality – sometimes usefully, sometimes aimlessly and almost always hopelessly. It’s shaped how I approach my work, but honestly, it also shapes how I move through life in general – an honourable mention to my husband, family and friends who have to deal with that personality trait on a daily basis.

I think the most important thing is to always consider that you might be wrong. Even if you turn out not to be, being open to the fact that you might be will always give you a much better perspective.