Class Acts 2019

Joseph O’Connor

BA English and History 1984, MA 1986

“A humorous retelling of the Dracula author’s life,” is the summary and review given by The Guardian to Joseph O’Connor’s new novel, Shadowplay, which was published in June 2019. This is O’Connor’s ninth novel, but he also enjoys success as a screenwriter, playwright and broadcaster. Given his history with awards – the Prix Zepter for European Novel of the Year; France’s Prix Millepages; Italy’s Premio Acerbi; an American Library Association Award; and the Irish Pen Award for Outstanding Achievement in Literature – there’s a good chance that this novel is also destined for huge literary success.

Frank McGuinness

BA English 1974, MPhil 1976

In April 2019, Frank McGuinness was awarded the highest honour the University can bestow: the Ulysses Medal, in recognition of his immense contribution to education and Irish literature. This year also marked the opening of the Frank McGuinness exhibition at the James Joyce Library at UCD which is open to the public. Titled “From Creativity to Legacy” it chronicles the transfer of Professor McGuinness’s archive to UCD Special Collections. Included are drafts of his best-known and critically acclaimed plays like The

Factory Girls, Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me and Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme.

Sinéad Gleeson

BA English and History 1997

In spring 2019, Sinead Gleeson’s book of essays, Constellations, was published and met with critical and public acclaim. Gleeson has also edited two anthologies: The Long Gaze Back: An Anthology of Irish Women Writers, which won Best Irish Published Book at the 2015 Irish Book Awards, and The Glass Shore: Short Stories by Women from the North of Ireland. Gleeson is currently Writer-in-Residence at UCD, teaching on the Creative Writer MFA and MA courses. In autumn 2020, Head of Zeus will publish The Art of the Glimpse: 100 Irish Short Stories, which will also be edited by Gleeson.

John O’Donovan

BA Philosophy and English 2005, MA 2007

After the success of his award-winning 2018 play, If We Got Some More Cocaine I Could Show You How Much I Love You, John O’Donovan wrote an article in The Irish Times about the lack of opportunities in the once-vibrant theatre world in Ireland, drawing attention to the loss of talent in Irish theatre, due to many of those interested and involved in the field moving abroad. O’Donovan is a founding member of the Society of Irish Playwrights. His new play, Sink, a mysterious monologue about memory and inherited pain in a world facing ecological disaster opens this month at Smock Alley Theatre.

Oriole Cullen

BA English and History of Art 1997

History of Art graduate Oriole Cullen was the curator behind this year’s high-profile and hugely popular fashion exhibition “Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams” at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. The exhibition, whose run was extended by several months due to demand for tickets, explores the beginnings, the allure, innovations and enduring influence of Dior’s iconic Paris fashion house. Cullen was born in Killiney, Co Dublin and graduated from UCD before studying at the Courtauld Institute and working at the Museum of London. She joined the V&A in 2006. This was Cullen’s third major exhibition for the London institution.

Neil Jordan

BA History 1972

Neil Jordan’s psychodrama Greta made its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2018 and has received praise from critics, including The Observer which hailed the film as a “nail-biter that sends ice down the spine and proves that in the hands of a master director, any genre is capable of achieving new heights of imagination”. The film went on to gross more than $15.5m worldwide.

Ross Whitaker

MA 2000

In 2018, director Ross Whitaker won the Screen Director Guild Finders Series Award for his sports documentary, Katie, which followed the now undisputed lightweight champion Katie Taylor, during a challenging year of personal and professional setbacks. Whitaker also won Best Irish Feature Documentary at the Galway Film Fleadh and won the Directors Finders Award at the Directors Finders Series in 2018.

Amanda Kelly

BA Archaeology and Greek & Roman Civilisation 1994, ProfCert University Teaching and Learning 2018

Dr Amanda Kelly was on the team that scooped an Asia Matters Higher Education Partnership of the Year Award in November 2018 for work at the Beijing-Dublin International College, a collaboration between UCD and Beijing University of Technology. Dr Kelly’s first book, The Aqueducts of Roman Crete, based on her PhD research, will be published in 2020.

Martina Fitzgerald

BA History and Politics 1995

A longtime political journalist, Martina Fitzgerald’s first book was published in October 2018. Madam Politician, detailing both the historic and modern trials and triumphs for Irish women in elected roles in politics, was named Irish Political Book of the Year in The Sunday Business Post. Prior to writing her bestselling book, Fitzgerald was RTÉ’s political correspondent from 2013 to 2018. She is also a public speaker and conference chair.

Dave Rudden

MA 2013

After an invitation to write about Doctor Who from the franchise’s custodians, Puffin and the BBC, Dave Rudden’s Doctor Who anthology, Twelve Angels Weeping, was published in October 2018. The anthology includes twelve stories, each featuring a villain from the Doctor Who world. Rudden is also the author of a successful fantasy saga, Knights of Borrowed Dark, which is in the process of being adapted for television and its two follow-ups, Forever Dark and Endless King.

Ailbhe Darcy

BA French and English 2004, MSc 2007

Poet Ailbhe Darcy won both the Roland Mathias Poetry Award 2019 and the Pigott Poetry Prize 2019 for Insistence (Bloodaxe). The Pigott Prize is the largest prize awarded for a poetry collection by an Irish poet. In early 2019, Darcy also made the shortlists of both The Irish Times Poetry Now award and the £25,000 TS Eliot Prize, the most prestigious and valuable prize in British poetry (shortlisted poets each receive £1,500). Insistence was Darcy’s second collection.

Brian Kennedy

BA History and History of Art 1982, MA 1985, PhD 1989

In July 2019, Brian Kennedy became executive director and CEO of the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. This comes at a time of major expansion for the museum which ranks among the top 20 in the US by measures including gallery space and endowment. Kennedy was formerly director of the Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio, which is known for its collections of paintings and sculpture, glass and netsuke.

Colm Tóibín

BA 1975

Award-winning writer of fiction, non-fiction and poetry, Colm Tóibín’s latest book, Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know: The Fathers of Wilde, Yeats and Joyce was published in May. Tóibín is a professor of the humanities at Columbia University and Chancellor of Liverpool University. His novels include The Master, Nora Webster and The House of Names. The 2015 film adaptation of Brooklyn, about a young emigrant to New York, received three Oscar nominations.

Jonathan Sexton

BComm 2012

In late 2018, Jonathan Sexton was crowned World Rugby Player of the Year at a ceremony in Monte Carlo, the first Irishman to be honoured with the award since Keith Wood won it in 2001. He also won Sportstar of the Year at The Irish Independent awards. Sexton, who has 78 caps for Ireland and will line out at the World Cup in Japan in September, has signed a contract extension with the IRFU until the end of the 2020/2021 season.

Leo Cullen

BA Economics and History 1999

Having led Leinster to a 2019 Guinness PRO14 victory, head coach Leo Cullen, who has 221 caps for Leinster, was captain of three Heineken Cup-winning squads, and was the first person to lift the European Cup as both player and coach, signed a new contract to lead the province for a further two seasons until the end of the 2020/2021 season. Cullen was appointed Head coach at the start of the 2015/16 season.

Nora Stapleton

BSc Sports Management 2004

In April 2019, former Ireland rugby international Nora Stapleton became Sport Ireland’s Women in Sport Lead. Stapleton’s role will be to strategically develop and promote women’s and girls’ involvement in sport. Last year, Stapleton, a member of the 2013 and 2015 Six Nations winning teams, was the driving force behind the IRFU’s “Give It A Try” campaign, where more than 1,000 young girls took part in an eight-week summer rugby programme.

Jack Mccaffrey

MB BCh BAO 2018

In 2018, the Dublin men’s senior football team made history by becoming All-Ireland champions for the fourth time in a row, beating Tyrone 2-17 to 1-14. Half-back Jack McCaffrey was the final’s Man of the Match, having returned from injury, illness and time off over the years to play the entire All-Ireland final. McCaffrey is also a qualified doctor and, in 2015, was named GAA All Star footballer of the year, the highest accolade in football.

Hannah Tyrrell

BA Geography and History 2016

In 2019, women’s rugby star Hannah Tyrrell completed her masters in teaching at UCD, continued her work as an ambassador for the Irish Rugby Union and Pieta House “Tackle Your Feelings” mental health campaign, as well as playing international rugby for both Sevens and 15s teams. Having had a huge impact in the 2018 Six Nations campaign, Tyrrell is currently “focused on Rugby Sevens and qualifying for next year’s Olympics in Tokyo”.

Harry Mcnulty

BSc Food Science 2017

In April 2019, Harry McNulty was a member of the Ireland Rugby Sevens team which qualified for the World Rugby Sevens Hong Kong Series in 2020. Born in Bahrain and educated at Rockwell College, he was formerly a member of Munster Academy and now plays club rugby for UCD. McNulty was also the successful applicant (out of 37,000) for a social media “dream job” with Royal Caribbean Cruises this summer.

Olga Lastovetsky

BSc 2011

In 2019, Dr Olga Lastovestky was a finalist in the 2019 L’Oréal-UNESCO Women in Science UK & Ireland Fellowship Awards Programme, which offers fellowships to women pursuing research careers. Dr Lastovestky’s research is based in the School of Biology and Environmental Science at UCD. Her PhD thesis (undertaken at Cornell University in New York) was on the molecular interactions between fungi and bacteria.

Stephen O’Rahilly

MB BCh BAO 1981

In June 2019, Professor Stephen O’Rahilly won the Banting Prize, the American Diabetes Association’s highest honour, for his work on the causes of obesity and Type 2 diabetes – including discovering the obesity gene that affects children and identifying numerous genes important in metabolic function and dysfunction. He was previously awarded the Ulysses Medal from UCD, the highest honour the University can bestow.

John Boland

BSc 1979

Professor John Boland was awarded Science Foundation Ireland Researcher of the Year 2018. The award recognises a significant contribution to the Irish research community in the year of the award and over the winner’s entire career. Professor Boland, a nanoscale materials and systems expert, was given the award for a new insight into the building blocks of copper. Professor Boland is also Ireland’s first Advanced ERC grant awardee in the physical sciences.

Ronan Mullins

MVB 2011

In February 2019, Ronan Mullins became a diplomate of the European College of Veterinary Surgeons. In the last twelve months, he also won the Association of Veterinary Soft Tissue Surgeons Professor Peter Holt Award for the best written abstract submitted to a meeting of the AVSTS, BSAVA or ECVS and the ECVS Resident Award for Best Small Animal Soft Tissue Presentation. Mullins is currently lecturing in the UCD School of Veterinary Medicine.

Sofia Softas-Nall

MPsychSc 2018

Singer, songwriter and counsellor-in-training, multi-tasking Sofia Softas-Nall received the 2019 International Psi Chi Rocky Mountain Psychological Association Regional Research Award for research on the experiences of Irish students with a chronic mental or physical illness pursuing further education. Recently graduated with a masters from UCD, she is now a graduate student at the University of Northern Colorado.

Norlinah Mohamed Ibrahim

BMedSc 1995, MB BCh BAO 1997

Professor Datin Dr Norlinah Mohamed Ibrahim was awarded the Distinguished Graduate Award from the UCD Medical Graduates Association for her research into movement disorder in Parkinson’s disease. Professor and senior consultant neurologist at UKM Medical Center in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Professor Ibrahim is medical advisor to the Malaysia Parkinson’s Disease Association and has received many awards in Malaysia.

Michael Redmond

MBA 2000

Dr Michael Redmond, a senior investigator at the National Eye Institute in the US, is one of a group of scientists who won the 2018 Antonio Champalimaud Vision Award for foundational science discoveries about the molecular biology of the retina, the light-sensing tissue at the back of the eye. The team was awarded the €1m prize for developing a gene therapy cure for a rare genetic form of childhood blindness, which could impact the lives of many.

Alison Holmes

BSc 2008, MSc 2010

Alison Holmes, clinical physiotherapist, was recently the recipient of a Nuffield Farming Scholarship which will enable her to pursue agricultural studies while also working as a physiotherapy tutor at the University of Limerick. Her scholarship will be used to promote the role of continuing professional development and education in farming. Holmes, who helps run her family’s dairy farm, is an active member of Macra na Feirme and physiotherapist for Kilkenny GAA.

Gerald Fleming

BSc 1978, MSc 1981

Gerald Fleming was awarded the 2019 Silver Medal from the European Meteorological Society. This award recognises Fleming’s outstanding contribution to the communication of meteorological information through enhancing the public understanding of meteorological services, as well as strengthening and fostering expertise in broadcast meteorology. Until 2017, he was head of forecasting at RTÉ.

Rob Gandola

BSc 2003

Senior scientist for the Herpetological Society of Ireland, Rob Gandola’s research focuses on reptiles and amphibians, both tropical and native Irish species. During the last year, his contributions to television and radio have raised awareness for the Dublin Bay Biosphere Partnership and the Herpetological Society. Most recently, he joined UCD’s Area 52 lab group as a PhD student. He is also senior herpetologist at a field site in Madagascar.

Niall Cussen

MRUP 1989

The Office of the Planning Regulator was established in April 2019 and Niall Cussen was appointed by the Government as the first planning regulator. Prior to this appointment, he was the chief planner at the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government and was involved in the development of a range of planning policies, including the National Planning Framework.

David Leech

BArch 2003

In April 2019, architect David Leech, who practices and teaches in London, received the Architects Journal Small Project award for an “exploratory” garden extension to an Irish house, which cost under £50,000 to create. Leech previously worked for Herzog De Meuron, Caruso St John Architects, de Paor Architects and Grafton Architects, before establishing his own practice.

Donal Finegan

BE 2013

In 2018, Donal Finegan, a first class honours UCD graduate, won the IchemE Young Researcher Award for his contributions to NASA’s battery safety programme. Engineering uses science and maths to find practical solutions to real-world problems and the award recognises the individual who best demonstrates this aim and addresses important economic, environmental or societal issues.

Sheila O’Donnell

BArch 1976

In February 2019, Sheila O’Donnell was the first Irish architect to be inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. More recently, she was named Woman Architect of the Year at the Women in Architecture awards, for her design of the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. She is also the co-founder, along with her husband John Tuomey, of the award- winning architectural practice, O’Donnell + Tuomey.

Pj Rudden

BE 1975

PJ Rudden won the 2018 Bicentennial ICE Brunel Medal for the development of major public infrastructure. This is his second ICE award, having won the 2016 ICE Outstanding Achievement Award for the development of national strategic infrastructure in energy and waste management. In 2018, Rudden, a former president of Engineers Ireland, was appointed chairman of the new editorial advisory board of the Engineers Journal, leading a board of expert professional engineers drawn
from all fields of engineering.

John O’Farrell

BE 1979

John O’Farrell is a partner in Andreessen Horowitz, the Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm with $2.7bn under management, investing in the technology sector with a focus on software, cloud computing, enterprise software and services. Early investments included Facebook, Twitter, Airbnb and Skype. Following significant investment in collaboration software company Slack, O’Farrell joined the board in 2019.

Lukas Decker

MSc 2012

Lukas Decker’s start-up, Coindrum, has been selected for the Retailtec Hub programme in Munich, which is facilitated by German electronics retail giant MediaMarktSaturn and Plug and Play, an early-stage investor that backed Google, Paypal and Dropbox. Coindrum offers a simple concept that converts loose change and unwanted foreign currency into duty free vouchers to be spent at airport retail stores, benefiting customers, airport authority, and retailers. Decker has plans to expand globally in the future.

Enda Gunnell

BComm 1989

CEO at Pinergy, the smart-metering electricity supplier, Enda Gunnell announced that it is providing 100 per cent of its electricity from renewable energy sources including wind, solar and hydro power and will continue to do so. This development positions Pinergy as Ireland’s first and only specialist smart energy provider to supply all of its electricity to its customers from renewable sources. As the official partner of Munster Rugby, the company has also recently announced that both Thomond Park and Irish Independent Park are to be powered by electricity from renewable energy sources.

Joe Barrett

BComm 1987, MBA 1992

In March 2019, Applegreen PLC, the Irish forecourt operator announced reaching annual sales of €2bn. Its COO Joe Barrett, who joined the company shortly after it was established in 1992, was this year appointed chair of Retail Excellence. Applegreen, whose activities are focused in Ireland, the UK and the US, employs 10,700, with 5,000 based in Ireland.

Stephen Cluskey

Prof Cert 2005

Mobility Mojo won the United Nations Zero Project for Innovative Practice 2018. Co-founded by CEO Stephen Cluskey, Mobility Mojo is an independent global rating system for hotel accessibility, designed to give a snapshot of the accessible features in hotels on a tech platform in an attractive, standardised way. Cluskey is also a TED Talk speaker.

James Meyler

BComm 1999

James Meyler is CEO at ORIX Aviation Group and CEO of ORIX Aviation Hong Kong. The growing company has a portfolio of more than 200 aircraft worth $10bn (€8.7bn), leased to about 70 airlines globally. Including aircraft sales and lease income, annual turnover is well in excess of $1bn (€880m). In its last financial year, ORIX Aviation bought, sold or leased over 100 aircraft valued in excess of $4bn (€3.5bn). Year on year, over the last ten years, their growth has been spectacular with $30bn (€26.3bn) in executed deals.

David Mcredmond

BA 1983, MA 1986

In 2019, An Post launched a €5m brand refresh and adopted the use of zero-emission electric vehicles. CEO David McRedmond joined An Post in 2016 and has overseen profit growth at the company, from €8.4m in 2017 to €40m in 2018. McRedmond has also initiated an expansion of An Post’s services and a consolidation of its post office network, which is the largest retail chain in the Republic. He also launched An Post’s entry into the mortgage market. McRedmond was The Irish Times’ Business Person of the Month in March 2019.

Jane Marshall

BA 1974

Last year, solicitor Jane Marshall became chair of the board of The Investor Compensation Company. As non-executive director of State Street Fund Services (Ireland) and adjunct professor of company law at UCC, Marshall’s career in insolvency law includes many firsts: first Irish practitioner elected to the American College of Bankruptcy, first Irish president of Insol Europe, the association of European insolvency practitioners and co-author of Corporate Insolvency and Rescue.

Sean Loughman

BE 1987

In May 2019, Sean Loughman was appointed chief information officer at Bus Éireann. Loughman previously worked at AIB, Eir and Ericsson. On his appointment, he said: “I am delighted to be joining Bus Éireann and looking forward to making a significant contribution to the development of the company”. Bus Éireann has seen a significant financial recovery in the last year, since its loss of €6.8m in 2017, reaching a profit of €1.6m before exceptional costs.

Geraldine Gibson

HDip 2003, MBA 2004

Geraldine Gibson is the founder and CEO of AQ Metrics, which has raised €3m in fresh funding from investors. The regulatory technology, or “regtech”, company built a software platform for risk and regulatory reporting to help financial firms track and manage compliance. In January 2019, AQ secured the go-ahead from the Central Bank of Ireland to provide a reporting tool for the EU’s new financial regulations – MiFID II.

Murphy Choy

MSc 2010

Dr Murphy Choy was awarded the 2019 Singapore Alumnus of the Year Award in April, presented to him by UCD at a ceremony in Singapore. Dr Choy, who has a masters in Finance from UCD, and experience as a programmer and analyst, is director of operations and technology at leading Singapore-based global firm SSON Analytics, the largest community of shared services and outsourcing professionals in the world.

Gerry Stone

BA Psychology 1990

New York-based managing director of Bank of America, Gerry Stone was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Westminster in November 2018, for his leadership in promoting equality in the workplace – in particular, LGBTQ rights
– and for his leadership in financial services and technology. A technology and operations leader with more than 20 years’ experience in the financial services industry and international banking, Stone has previously worked at global firms Merrill and Lloyds Bank.

Katharine Jensen

MBA 2009

In December 2018, Katharine Jensen was promoted to the role of executive director and head of corporate social responsibility at Vertex Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Vertex Pharmaceuticals. She now leads the company’s ten-year, $500m corporate giving commitment. Jensen previously worked at Abbvie and Abbott Laboratories, creating philanthropic initiatives. Vertex recorded a $857m profit in March 2019.

Donie O’Sullivan

BA History and Politics 2012

A CNN technology and politics reporter, Donie O’Sullivan works with the investigative unit of the network, identifying online disinformation campaigns. O’Sullivan was on the team that found Russian government-linked social media accounts targeting American voters and in 2018, O’Sullivan’s findings were used by US Congress investigators to examine the extent of Russian meddling with social media prior to the 2016 US presidential election.

Máire Kearney

BA Economics and Politics 1991

In November 2018, director and producer Máire Kearney’s documentary, Whistleblower: the Maurice McCabe Story was aired. The two-part documentary had an audience of 1.1 million and is one of the most-watched documentaries on the RTÉ Player with over 90,000 views. Kearney said: “It was an absolute privilege to tell their story and we are so happy that so many watched and got to see the courage and integrity of Maurice and Lorraine McCabe.”

Fintan O’Toole

BA English and Philosophy 1978

In 2018, The Irish Times columnist, Alumni Award winner 2018, Fintan O’Toole won the Broadsheet Columnist of the Year award at the Newsbrand Ireland awards. His book, Heroic Failure: Brexit and the Politics of Pain, was published in late 2018 to critical acclaim and he has been shortlisted for the 2019 European Press Prize for his article, “Trial Runs for Fascism are in Full Flow”, the most-viewed article on irishtimes.com to date.

Jack Lahart

BA History and Politics 2013

In late 2018, Jack Lahart was made deputy community editor at The Economist, which won the 2019 KuppingerCole European Identity & Cloud Award for Best Identity Platform Project. Lahart works in the publication’s social media team to distribute content across all social media platforms. Prior to this, he worked as content specialist for The Economist and has previously worked in Seanad Éireann as a researcher.

Gail Slater

BCL 1993, LLM 1997

Dublin native Gail Slater, who worked in the Trump White House, has left the administration to take up a senior position with Fox Corporation, as head of the broadcaster’s federal policy team. She was one of the honorees at the March American Ireland Funds Gala Dinner in March 2019. Slater, who has a law degree from UCD, was widely credited with crafting and executing the Trump White House strategy on wireless 5G.

Paul Cunningham

BA English and Greek & Roman Civilisation 1990

Paul Cunningham was appointed political correspondent at RTÉ in November 2018, after 30 years with the broadcaster in various roles. As European correspondent based in Brussels, he covered EU affairs and the Euro crisis. He won an IFTA in 2002 for his documentary Bad Blood and has published two books including Ireland’s Burning: How Climate Change Will Affect You.

Gavan Reilly

BComm 2009

Gavan Reilly was one of Twitter’s most influential Irish journalists in 2019, according to the Murray Tweet Index, released in April. Political correspondent for Virigin Media News, Reilly hosts a weekly radio show on
Newstalk, where he presides over discussion and debate on politics and current affairs. This year, he also published his non-fiction book, Enda the Road, about the Maurice McCabe scandal and the end of Enda Kenny’s career.

Oonagh Breen

BCL 1992, LLM 1995

In the last year, Professor Oonagh Breen became president-elect of the International Society for Third Sector Research, and will become the first Irish person to hold the presidency in 2021. The ISTR, based at Johns Hopkins University, and part of the Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Institute for Health and Social Policy, promotes the study of civil society, philanthropy and the non-profit sector and brings together scholars, researchers and practitioners from over 80 countries around the world.

Deirdre Curtin

BCL 1980

In November 2018, Professor Deirdre Curtin was conferred with an honorary doctorate by the University of Copenhagen for extensive and significant research of high international quality throughout her career. The legal scholar works in the area of law and governance of the European Union and is head of law and professor of European law at the European University Institute of Florence. At the ceremony, Professor Curtin gave a lecture titled: “The Panoptic Administrative State in Europe”.

Imelda Maher

BCL 1985

Professor Imelda Maher was made an honorary bencher of The Honorable Society of the Middle Temple in February 2019, making her one of few Irish people to have received such an honour, reserved for individuals who have excelled in their professions. Professor Maher is also dean of Law and Sutherland Professor of European Law at UCD. She was the first Irish woman to become president of the Society of Legal Scholars of the UK and Ireland.

Aileen Donnelly

BCL 1986, MEqualS 1995

2019 was a successful year for UCD’s legal alumni within the judiciary. Ms Justice AILEEN DONNELLY (BCL 1986, MEqualS 1995) was promoted to the Court of Appeal. Called to the Bar in 1988 and to the Inner Bar in 2004, she was appointed to the High Court in 2014.

John O'Connor

BA 1977, LLM 1997

2019 was a successful year for UCD’s legal alumni within the judiciary. John O'Connor was appointed a Circuit Court judge in February 2019. A native of Swinford, he was on the council of the Law Society for a number of years and was also president of the Dublin Solicitors Bar Association.

Gerard Hogan

BCL 1979, LLM 1981, LLD 1997

2019 was a successful year for UCD’s legal alumni within the judiciary. In September 2018, Mr Justice GERARD HOGAN (BCL 1979, LLM 1981, LLD 1997), a former Court of Appeal judge, took up the position of advocate general to the European Court of Justice whose headquarters are in Luxembourg. The advocate general presents a legal opinion on cases assigned by the judges of the European Court of Justice.

Ailbhe Smyth

BA English and French 1966, MA 1968

In April 2019, Ailbhe Smyth and Grainne Griffin (BSocSc 2006) along with Orla O’Connor, were listed in Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of 2019, alongside Michelle Obama. Smyth and Griffin were celebrated for their role in campaigning for the repeal of the Eighth Amendment. Both were co-directors of Together for Yes, an umbrella group made up of over 70 groups representing a diverse cross-section of Irish civil society.

Frances Fitzgerald

BSocSc 1971

A Fine Gael parliamentarian for over 20 years, Frances Fitzgerald won her seat at the European Parliamentary Elections in May 2019 and is now serving as a member of the European Parliament (MEP). In government, she most recently served as Tánaiste na hÉireann (2016- 17), one of only four women to have ever held this position. She was also the Minister for Justice and Equality and was the first ever Minister of State for Children and Youth Affairs, from 2011 to 2014.

Hazel Chu & Patrick Costello

BA Politics and History 2002, MSc 2011 & BA Psychology 2002, Cert 2004, Dip 2005

The couple were first-time candidates in May 2019’s council elections, both winning seats for the Green Party. Chu, former head of communications with Diageo, won in the Pembroke constituency of South Dublin city while Costello, a child protection social worker, won a seat in Kimmage-Rathmines.

Conor Pierce

BComm 1992, MBS 1994

In December 2018, Conor Pierce was appointed vice-president of Samsung UK and Ireland. Prior to his appointment, Pierce had been leading the company’s UK and Ireland IT and mobile division, helping propel Samsung’s mobile division to new heights despite increasing headwinds in the UK mobile market. Pierce’s career path has included leadership roles at Nokia, in Ireland, Dubai, Turkey and the UK. He has also worked at Ericsson and Microsoft.

Jack Donaghy

BA Economics 1991

Jack Donaghy, CEO of global travel software business Roomex, announced recently the company had raised €8m in a series A funding round, led by Draper Esprit with support from existing share holders Frontline Ventures and Harmony Capital. Roomex allows businesses book hotel rooms through its global platform, centralising all bookings and invoices in one account. Customers include Musgraves, Dairygold, Kepak, Mitsubishi and Muller.

Gerard Dwyer

BComm 1990, MBS 1997

Gerard Dwyer is CFO at Waymo, Google’s autonomous car company. Having overseen the company since it spun out under Google’s Alphabet as a self-driving technology company in 2016, Dwyer believes the future of road safety lies in self-driving technology. The company was recently given permission by California regulators to transport passengers in its robotaxis, a significant milestone for the company as it looks towards rolling out a commercial service.

Laura Toogood

BA Greek & Roman Civilisation 2006, PhD 2011

Dr Toogood has a PhD in informatics and is the founder of Fieldmaster Group, which provides strategic advice to manage the online profiles of prominent individuals, family offices and luxury brands. Dr Toogood co-authored Journalism and PR: News, Media and Public Relations in the Digital Age and is also a media commentator whose appearances on television this year have increased awareness of internet safety issues such as identity theft.

Monika Biniecka

Graduate Cert in Medicine 2016

MSD Newman Fellow in Inflammatory Arthritis, 2011-2013, Dr Biniecka was awarded a prestigious Marie Curie fellowship in 2018 for her research project, ‘Cardiovascular complications in rheumatoid arthritis patients: induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes as an experimental model’. The project aims to identify mechanisms associated with the development of heart disease in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients.

Julie Morrissy

BCL 2006, MA 2013

Dr Julie Morrissy is the first recipient of the John Pollard Newman Fellowship in Creativity in UCD and is based at the School of English. She is also a poet, academic, critic and activist and recently won the Next Generation Artist Award from the Arts Council for 2018-2019. Her debut collection Where, the Mile End launched in 2019 with BookThug (Canada) and Tall-Lighthouse (Britain & Ireland). Her work has been published widely including in Poetry Ireland Review.

Christine Casey

BA 1980, MA 1983

First National Building Society Newman Fellow in Irish 18th-Century Architecture 1993-1995, Casey was admitted as a Member of the Royal Irish Academy in May 2019. Professor Casey is professor of Architectural History at Trinity College Dublin and an honorary member of the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland. She has a particular interest in the relationship of architecture and decoration and the role of craftsmanship in architectural production.

Aoife O’Donovan

PhD 2009

Aoife O’Donovan, Craig Dobbin Newman Fellow in Mental Health Research, won the 2018 Chaim and Bela Danieli Young Professional Award, bestowed by the International Society of Traumatic Stress Studies for research into traumatic stress. O’Donovan is assistant professor of psychiatry and director of Thrive Lab at the University of California, which uncovers how psychological stress causes ill health, and develops treatments for stress- related psychiatric symptoms.

Orla Hardiman

BSc 1980, MB BCh BAO 1983, MD 1992

Orla Hardiman, a graduate of Medicine at UCD and now professor of neurology at TCD, was in the news in late 2018 in her role as neurologist to Fr Tony Coote, a former UCD chaplain, with motor neuron disease who organised a 550km walk from Donegal to Cork to raise funds and awareness. She was the first clinician elected to the Council of the Royal Irish Academy and is an internationally recognised expert in MND. Professor Hardiman was formerly Élan Corporation Newman

Jack Teeling & Stephen Teeling

BComm 1997, MBS 1998 & MBS 2004

The Teeling brothers’ 24-year-old single malt whiskey was crowned the “World’s Single Best Malt” at the 2019 World Whiskies Awards in March 2019. The Teeling brothers are co-founders and joint managing directors of Teeling Whiskey, which was the first new distillery in Dublin in over 125 years in 2015, and plan to double its sales to €30m annually by 2020.

Pj Rigney

BComm 1982

In 2014, entrepreneur PJ Rigney founded The Shed Distillery. Connacht’s first distillery in 101 years produces Drumshanbo Gunpowder Irish Gin which, in late 2018, hit the 100,000 bottle milestone. The gin brand is available in more than 25 international markets. The Shed has also launched Sausage Tree Vodka and will open a visitor centre experience later this year.

Brian Fagan

BBLS 2000

Brian Fagan is one of five co-founders of the Glendalough Distillery & Five Lamps Brewery. Glendalough Distillery was one of Ireland’s first craft whiskey producers, and now produces three award-winning whiskeys, as well as the first commercially produced distillate poitín. Whiskey critic Jim Murray described the Glendalough 13-year-old whiskey as, “probably the most sensuous chocolate finish in the history of Irish whiskey… different and adorable,” giving it "liquid gold" status.

Gerry Ginty

BComm 2008

Gerry Ginty is the co-founder and chief operations officer at the award-winning Powerscourt Distillery. He opened the Powerscourt Distillery’s visitor centre at the Powerscourt demesne in Enniskerry, Co Wicklow, in early 2019. The company is now worth more than €20m. Powerscourt’s whiskey is a small-batch artisan pot-stilled Irish Whiskey for the domestic and foreign market. Ginty has plans to increase visitor numbers to the centre to 30,000 and to launch further artisan whiskeys.

Tara McCarthy

MBS 1991

In 2019, Tara McCarthy, CEO of Bord Bia, was UCD Smurfit School Alumna of the Year. As CEO of the body which represents food and drink businesses in Ireland, McCarthy believes Irish provenance and sustainability are key to industry growth. Bord Bia is also helping prepare the sector for Brexit. The UK is Ireland’s largest market for food and drink, accounting for 41 percent of exports. In September 2018, McCarthy was made a fellow of the Marketing Institute of Ireland.

Caolán Cullen

BSocSc 2015

Caolán Cullen is the founder of Ireland’s first hand-rolled ice cream company. Arctic Stone Ice Cream won “Best Established Business” at the Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown Local Enterprise Awards in May 2019 and was a finalist in the Small Firms Association National Small Business Awards 2019. Cullen himself was named 2018’s Rising Star of the Irish food industry by the All-Ireland Business Summit. Cullen has plans to expand Arctic Stone with outlets in Cork, Galway and Belfast.

Colin Harmon

BBLS 2005, MSc 2017

After stints in law and finance, Colin Harmon has turned an interest in coffee into a successful career. Founded in 2014, Harmon’s company 3fe now employs 45 staff and has five shops. Every year, 3fe roasts almost 100 tonnes of coffee beans in the company’s Dublin 1 roastery. Harmon, who left a career in finance to retrain as a barista, is now taking on wholesale customers all over the world and has multiple projects on the go, including a follow-up to his bestselling book, What I Know About Running Coffee Shops.

Catherine Weadick Daly

BComm 2003

In late 2018, Catherine Weadick Daly became head of marketing and communications at Sustainable Nation Ireland and UN Environment FC4S Europe. The UN-supported programme encourages global financial centres to place sustainable and green finance at the heart of their operations and help fight climate change.

Marijke Beltman

ProfCert 2013

Dr Beltman, diplomate, board member and secretary of the European College of Animal Reproduction, over the past year has been involved in Agri Aware’s #ManyHatsOneCAP campaign which aims to demonstrate the important role of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy. A graduate of the University of Utrecht, Dr Beltman began her career as an intern at UCD.

Amii Mckeever

BAgrSc 2003, MAgrSc 2006, ProfDip 2014

In 2018, Amii McKeever became president of the Agricultural Science Association, the professional body for graduates in agricultural, horticultural, forestry, environmental and food science. This year, she left Glanbia to edit Irish Country Living, the weekly magazine of the Irish Farmers Journal.

Emma Walsh

MBA 2013

In March 2019, Emma Walsh, COO of Food Cloud, gave a presentation on the “Future of Food Redistribution” at the European Commission in Brussels, which highlighted delegated distribution and digital transformation for food redistribution. Food Cloud, founded in 2013, connects supermarkets with surplus food to charities via a technology platform.

John Ryan

BAgrSc 1967, PhD 1971, DSc 1999

In 2018, Dr John Ryan won the prestigious Liebig Award, which recognises outstanding contributions in applied soil science research. His international career involves research, teaching, administration, leadership, and editorial assignments. A Fulbright scholar, Ryan has held positions at the American University of Beirut, the University of Arizona and the University of Nebraska. He is a fellow of the American Society for the Advancement of Science and has received the IFA Crop Nutrition and the IPNI Science Award.

Niamh Muldoon

BA Politics and Economics 2003

In April 2019, solicitor Niamh Muldoon was appointed chief executive and registrar of the Veterinary Council Ireland. The primary function of the Veterinary Council Ireland, a statutory body, is to regulate the conduct and business of veterinary nurses and doctors in the State in the public interest. Prior to her appointment to the Veterinary Council, Muldoon had been head of corporate governance and secretary to the Medical Council of Ireland, which regulates doctors in Ireland. Before that, she was a partner in legal practice, Holohan Solicitors.

Jianyin Zhang

PhD 1996

Jianyin Zhang of the Chinese Academy of Engineering was a keynote speaker at the 2019 International Conference on Water Resources and Environment Research, which brings together researchers and practitioners from around the globe to present latest theoretical and practical research in water resources and the environment. Professor Zhang is a specialist in hydrology and water resources, and was formerly deputy director general of hydrology of the Chinese Ministry of Water Resources.

Saoirse Mchugh

BSc Genetics 2012

Saoirse McHugh was a Green Party candidate for the Midlands-North West region in this year’s European Council elections but narrowly missed out on a seat. Standing for the environment, equality and progressive politics, McHugh ran for election because she was worried about lack of action on climate change. She came to prominence in a televised debate on RTÉ, prior to the election. Her performance was credited with adding to the “Green Wave” in Irish politics this year.