In recognition of their academic excellence, five UCD academics are among the twenty newly elected members of the Royal Irish Academy (RIA). This is the highest academic honour in Ireland.
Candidates for election must have made a significant contribution to scholarly or scientific research as shown in published academic work.
The UCD academics newly elected to the Royal Irish Academy are:
Many of Ireland’s leading scholars are members of the RIA, the best known of whom include: Seamus Heaney, Nobel Laureate; Joe Lee, historian; Seamus Deane, literary scholar; Garrett Fitzgerald, Taoiseach 1981-2, 1982-7; Brendan Walsh, economist; Michael Laver, political scientist; Dermot Gleeson, barrister; Anngret Simms, geographer; Richard Kearney, philosopher; Peter Sutherland, lawyer and banker; Pat Fottrell, biochemist; Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland; Mary McAleese, current President of Ireland.
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 and has approximately 300 members. Only twenty new members are elected to the Academy on the 16 March each year. Members provide expert advice on the Academy’s councils and committees.
Andrew Carpenter, Associate Professor of English
Head of UCD School of English & Drama
B.Therese Kinsella, Associate Professor of BiochemistryProf. B.Therese Kinsella is an expert in the field of vascular haemostasis and thrombosis, an area that underpins cardiovascular disease, the most prevalent causes of morbidity and mortality in Ireland and western societies. Winner of the Royal Irish Academy Award Medal for Biochemistry in 2000, Prof. Kinsella holds substantial funding for her basic biomolecular research into the role of specific lipid hormones, termed the prostanoids, in haemostasis and is a recipient of a prestigious Wellcome Trust programme grant for her research in this area.
Patricia Lysaght, Associate Professor of Irish Folklore
UCD School of Irish, Celtic Studies, Irish Folklore & Linguistics
Patricia Lysaght is an Associate Professor of European Ethnology in the UCD School of Irish, Celtic Studies, Irish Folklore, and Linguistics, and is an elected member of the Royal Gustavus Adolphus Academy, Uppsala, Sweden. She has been extensively published nationally and internationally. She is Editor in chief of Folklore, Journal of The Folklore Society, London, and also of Béaloideas, the Journal of the Folklore of Ireland Society.
Peter l. Mitchell, Associate Professor of Experimental Physics
UCD School of Physics
Professor Peter Mitchell specialises in the fields of radiation physics, radioecology and radioisotope dating. He has published extensively in leading international journals on a broad range of topics, and has made important contributions to our understanding of the complex behaviour of transuranium nuclides, such as plutonium and americium, in the environment. He has contributed to the work of various national and international institutions, including the European Commission, and is a member of the Euratom (Article 37) Group of Experts, as well as the International Committee for Radionuclide Metrology. He is a member of the editorial boards of several leading international journals, and is a former Head of the UCD School of Physics and former Associate Dean of Science at UCD.
Harry White, Professor of Music
UCD School of Music
Harry White is Professor of Music at University College Dublin and President of the Society for Musicology in Ireland. He was educated at UCD, the University of Toronto and the University of Dublin, where he took his PhD in 1986. He has held visiting professorships in Canada, Germany and the U.K, and in 2005 he was awarded an IRCHSS senior fellowship to write a study of music and the Irish literary imagination. His principal research is on the cultural history of music in Ireland and the Austro-Italian Baroque. Professor White has published over sixty research papers, two monographs, and six edited volumes. His books include Johann Joseph Fux and the Music of the Austro-Italian Baroque (1992), The Keeper’s Recital. Music and Cultural History in Ireland, 1770-1970 (1998) and The Progress of Music in Ireland (2005).
