News & Events

The UCD Earth Institute is delighted to announce the appointment of two new Deputy Directors, Dr Meriel McClatchie (School of Archaeology) and Dr Conor Sweeney (School of Mathematics and Statistics), by the newly appointed Institute Director Prof. Eoin O’Neill.  Both Meriel and Conor have been active members of the Earth Institute community for a number of years and involved with the Institute’s work in a variety of capacities – Meriel through the Diversicrop Strategic Priority project which she leads with Dr Sonia Negrão (School of Biology and Environmental Science) and Conor as a member of the Institute Executive Committee and co-lead of the Climate research theme.

Eoin O'Neill expressed his enthusiasm for the Institute's future under the leadership of these accomplished researchers,

“We are particularly pleased to have two such strong supporters and advocates of the Institute in these roles, and to have a leadership team that reflects the breadth of research areas and disciplines within the Institute. Their collegiality, research track record and dedication to environmental, climate and sustainability research align perfectly with our mission to support and encourage interdisciplinary collaboration. I would also like to thank our outgoing deputy director, Prof. Emma Teeling for her longstanding support of the Institute.”

	Meriel McClatchie is an Associate Professor at the School of Archaeology and a member of the Earth Institute since 2018. Her research focuses on ancient foods, farming and landscapes. She established an archaeobotany laboratory at UCD, where her research team examines the remains of plants recovered from archaeological excavations. Meriel’s current research projects include food security in prehistoric Ireland and underutilised crops in modern Europe funded by IRC Coalesce, UCD Earth Institute Strategic Priority Support Mechanism and COST Action. Her collaborative research draws upon archaeological evidence for past farming and land-use systems to better understand how modern systems have emerged and how they can be adapted for a sustainable future.
	Conor Sweeney is a Lecturer in Applied and Computational Mathematics in the School of Mathematics and Statistics. His undergraduate degree was in Mechanical Engineering in UCD, and he went on to work as a design engineer in Italy and America. Conor then returned to Ireland to do a PhD in Trinity College Dublin in the area of Computational Fluid Dynamics. After this, he joined the C4I team in Met Éireann as a postdoctoral researcher in climate modelling. Conor’s research interests involve atmospheric modelling, and he has current projects in the areas of renewable energy and agricultural meteorology.