Posted: 21 May 2008
Highest honour for six UCD academics
Six UCD academics have been elected as members of the Royal Irish Academy (RIA) in the recent membership round announced on 16 May 2008. This is the highest number of academics elected from any single university.
Election to the Royal Irish Academy is the highest academic honour in Ireland. The criterion for election to membership of the Royal Irish Academy is a significant contribution to scholarly or scientific research as shown in the candidate's published academic work. Membership of the Academy, which is by peer nomination and election, is limited to those scientists and scholars normally resident in Ireland.
“It is a testament to Ireland's formidable position in the academic world that the Royal Irish Academy is today able to honour such a variety of exceptional scholars in the Sciences and Humanities. Ireland can be proud of these brilliant women and men who are universally recognised as leaders in the world of learning," said Professor Nicholas Canny, President of the Royal Irish Academy speaking of the newly elected members.
Five of the six UCD academics newly admitted as members of the Royal Irish Academy pictured with Professor Nicholas Canny, President of the RIA (centre left): Professor Brian Nolan (far left); Professor Mark O'Malley (second from left); Mr James McGuire (centre right); Professor Attracta Ingram (second from right); and Professor Michael McGlinchey (far right)
The UCD academics newly admitted as members of the RIA are:
Professor Carmel McCarthy
Professor McCarthy of the UCD School of Languages and Literatures has established for herself an international reputation of the first order in the textual criticism of the Hebrew bible, and has most recently been part of an international team collaborating in a new critical edition of the Hebrew bible, Biblia Hebraica.
Professor Brian Nolan
Professor Nolan is Professor of Public Policy in the UCD School of Applied Social Science. He previously worked in the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) and the Central Bank of Ireland. He has published extensively on income inequality, poverty, earnings, tax/transfer policy, and health economics, and his pioneering work on measuring poverty and social exclusion has been particularly influential in the academic literature and official practice in Ireland, the UK and the European Union.
Professor Mark O’Malley
Professor O'Malley of the UCD School of Electronic, Electrical and Mechanical Engineering has made seminal contributions to the study of dynamic, operational and economic impacts of high penetrations of renewable energy on electricity grids. He is recognised as a world leader in these areas. He acts as a consultant to the Irish electricity industry on a range of issues from electricity market design, grid integration of wind power and power system operations.
Mr James McGuire
Mr McGuire is a senior lecturer in the UCD School of History and Archives, and is Managing Editor of the Dictionary of Irish Biography, which will be an indispensable work of reference. To be published in seven volumes and on-line by Cambridge University Press in 2009, the Dictionary of Irish Biography will be the internationally recognised biographical reference work for Ireland.
Professor Attracta Ingram
Professor Ingram is the Head of the UCD School of Politics and International Relations, and author and editor of many publications, including Questioning Ireland (Institute of Public Administration, 2000) and A Political Theory of Rights (Clarendon Press, 1993). Her research interests are theories of rights, multiculturalism, and ideas of state and nation.
Professor Michael McGlinchey
Michael McGlinchey is professor of inorganic chemistry at the UCD School of Chemistry and Chemical Biology. His research interests are in the area of organometallic chemistry, including its relevance to cancer detection and therapy. He has published more than 200 research articles in major chemistry journals.
About the Royal Irish Academy (RIA)
The Royal Irish Academy is an all-Ireland, independent, academic body that promotes study and excellence in the sciences, humanities and social sciences. It is the principal learned society in Ireland.
For 223 years membership of the Royal Irish Academy has been keenly competed for, as it is the highest academic honour in Ireland and a public recognition of academic achievement. There are now 404 Members of the Academy, in disciplines from the sciences, humanities and social sciences. Those elected are entitled to use the designation 'MRIA' after their name.
Among the membership of the Academy are many of Ireland's leading scholars, the best known of whom include: Professor Seamus Heaney, Nobel Laureate; Dr Garret FitzGerald, economist and former Taoiseach; Professor Mary E. Daly, Principal, UCD College of Arts and Celtic Studies; Professor Ciaran Regan, UCD Conway Institute; and Professor Brigid Laffan, Principal, UCD College of Human Sciences.
The Academy also has more than 50 distinguished honorary Members, who in the past have included J.W. Von Goethe, Maria Edgeworth, Albert Einstein and Max Born. Today the Honorary Members include Nobel Laureates, Murray Gell-Mann, Steven Weinberg and Sir Andrew Huxley.