Luke Drury

Luke Drury was born in Dublin in 1953. He studied experimental physics and pure mathematics at Trinity College Dublin before undertaking a PhD in Astrophysics at the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge, England. He subsequently worked at the Max-Planck-Institut fuer Kernphysik, Heidelberg, Germany before returning to Dublin in 1986 to head up the Astrophysics section of the School of Cosmic Physics in the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.
Luke Drury was elected a member of the Royal Irish Academy in 1995 and President on 16th March 2011. He is the 54th President of the Academy since it was established in 1785.

 

Vani Borooah

Vani Borooah, born in India, has held the Chair in Applied Economics at the University of Ulster since 1987. After taking his Ph.D. in 1977 from the University of Southampton, he worked for the next 10 years as a Senior Research Officer at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Applied Economics and, concurrently, was a Fellow of Queens’ College. He is a past President of the European Public Choice Society and of the Irish Economic Association and is also Honorary Professor of Economics at the University of Queensland. He was elected a Member of the RIA in 2006. His work has been mainly in the areas of unemployment, inequality, poverty, and economic development.

 

John McGilp

John McGilp is the Professor of Surface and Interface Optics at TCD. He is internationally known for establishing, in Europe, the field of surface and interface optics, “epioptics”, and founding the biannual “Optics at Surfaces and Interfaces” (OSI) international conference. He has published widely in this and related fields. He has served as Chair of the Institute of Physics in Ireland and has held several administrative positions in TCD, including Head of the School of Physics and Bursar of TCD. Professor McGilp is currently a Board Member of TCD and also a member of the TCD Audit Committee. He was elected a Member of the Royal Irish Academy in 2003.

 

Andrew Carpenter

Andrew Carpenter is Emeritus Professor of English at University College Dublin where he taught for nearly 40 years and served as Dean of Arts and Director of Development. Otherwise he has devoted himself to researching the writing – particularly the poetry – of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Ireland. He has written extensively on the period and edited many texts. His best known publications are two anthologies Verse in English from Tudor and Stuart Ireland (2003) and Verse in English from Eighteenth-Century Ireland (1998). He was founding chairman of the Eighteenth-Century Ireland Society and founding editor of Eighteenth-Century Ireland.

 

Celia Holland

Professor Celia Holland studied Zoology at Trinity College before undertaking a PhD in Experimental Parasitology at Cambridge University and a Postdoctoral research fellowship at Cornell University.

Professor Holland is currently Associate Professor in Zoology at Trinity College where she was awarded fellowship in 1995. Her research interests focus upon the epidemiology of human helminth infections.

Professor Holland is an Invited Expert on the WHO Advisory Panel on Parasitic Diseases and currently Secretary General of the European Federation of Parasitology. Professor Holland is an Associate Editor of the Cambridge journal Parasitology. She was elected a member of the Royal Irish Academy in 2004.

Link to Professor Holland’s publications: http://www.tcd.ie/Zoology/research/research/parasitology/index.php

 

James Lunney

James G. Lunney is Associate Professor of Physics and Fellow at Trinity College, Dublin. His current research interests are in high power laser-matter interactions and plasma physics, with particular emphasis on pulsed laser ablation and deposition of solid and nanoparticle materials for research. He also does research on applications of conical refraction, which is a curious optical effect discovered in Dublin in 1832. Previously he has work on laser thermonuclear fusion and X-ray laser research. He served as Head of the School of Physics (2005 - 2008). He is author of over 160 scientific papers and Fellow of Institute of Physics.
 

Kenneth Bell

Professor Emeritus Kenneth Lloyd Bell. Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Education) at Queen’s University Belfast (2001-2006); Head of School of Mathematics and Physics (1998-2001). Research interests were in the field of theoretical atomic physics with particular interest in electron or photon-atom/ion collisions; photodetachment of negative ions; transition probabilities; and free-free transitions of negative ions. Most of the data calculated are relevant to astrophysical application, in particular to planetary nebulae and the sun.

186 publications in refereed journals. Fellow of the Institute of Physics (elected 1989); Royal Astronomical Society (elected 1991); American Physical Society (elected 1997); Member of the Royal Irish Academy (elected 2001).

 

Attracta Ingram

Attracta Ingram is Professor Emeritus in University College Dublin. She has published extensively in political and social theory, particularly on the philosophy of rights, social justice, pluralism, state and nation, constitutional patriotism, and cosmopolitanism. She was elected a member of the Royal Irish Academy in March 2008. She was a founder and Board member of the European InterUniversity Centre for human rights and democratization (1997-2010). She has held a Jean Monnet Research fellowship in the EUI, as well as visiting fellowships in St. Andrews, Harvard, Columbia, and Berkeley.

 

Eugene Kennedy

Professor Kennedy is Professor Emeritus and former Vice-President for Research at Dublin City University. He was elected Fellow of the Institute of Physics in 1987 and member of the Royal Irish Academy in 2004. He brought laser-based research at DCU to international prominence through applications of laser-generated plasmas to problems in atomic physics, laser-plasma source development and plasma diagnostics. He has coordinated major international EU research networks and been an invited researcher at the National Institute for Standards and Technology (Wash. DC), HASYLAB and FLASH (DESY Hamburg), LURE (Paris) and the Advanced Light Source (University of California at Berkeley).

 

James McGuire

Joint Editor, Dictionary of Irish Biography (9 vols and online, Cambridge University Press), he is Adjunct Professor in the UCD School of History and Archives and Chairman of the Irish Manuscripts Commission. Joint Editor of Irish Historical Studies (1987–92), President of the Irish Historical Society (1994–5), President of the Irish Legal History Society (2006–9), he was Overseas Visiting Scholar, St John's College, Cambridge (1997). Awarded the Gold Medal of the Irish Legal History Society (2010), he was conferred D.Litt. (hon.) by the NUI (2011). His publications are listed in James Kelly et al. (ed.), People, politics and power (2009).

 

Seán Ó Coileáin

Professor Emeritus of Modern Irish at University College Cork. Chairman of the Folklore of Ireland Council. Formerly Professor of Irish Studies at Harvard University.

Following undergraduate and postgraduate studies at UCC, he was awarded the Travelling Studentship of the National University of Ireland in 1967, choosing to study at Harvard, where he was greatly influenced by the work of Professor John V. Kelleher in Irish history and literature and of Professor Albert B. Lord in oral theory and composition. Their teaching informs much of his own subsequent writings in the area of Irish literature, from the Guaire cycle (the subject of his Harvard Ph.D.) to Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire. An influence of a different kind, which also grew into personal friendship, was that of Seán Ó Ríordáin; his literary biography of Ó Riordáin was awarded the literary prize of the Irish-American Cultural Institute in 1984. Other scholarly interests include the literature of the Great Blasket, his work on which includes a new edition of An tOileánach (Cló Talbóid, 2001).

A long-time member of the Senate of the National University, he takes an active interest in Irish-language matters and is Chairman of Gaelachas Teoranta which overseas the operations of Coláiste an Phiarsaigh and Scoil na nÓg in Glanmire, County Cork.