….Turn down the noise and tune into the experts

Join UCD Discovery from anywhere in the world for our lively 15-minute Zoom for Thought series. Our host, UCD Discovery Director Patricia Maguire, micro-chats with some of the world’s finest interdisciplinary minds on a range of thought-provoking topics.

Our Next Thought Leader

Our Upcoming Thought Leaders

Our Past Thought Leaders

Mind Space - the moon, mars and me

Dr Niamh Shaw, scientist and engineer on a mission to get to Space!

20/11/2022

Maintaining Energy Security, an added imperative for accelerated decarbonisation?

Andrew Keane, Director of the Energy Institute at University College Dublin

12/04/2022

The evolution of organised crime in Ireland

Paul Williams, multi-award winning crime journalist, author and broadcaster

29/03/2022

In between small drugs and protein therapeutics: what can peptides offer?

Denis Shields, Full Professor of Clinical Bioinformatics, School of Medicine

01/03/2022

Challenges and Opportunities for AI in Medical Image Analysis

Kathleen Curran, Assistant Professor in Diagnostic Imaging in UCD School of Medicine

15/02/2022

An Intellectual History of the Welfare State

Bryan Fanning, Professor of Migration and Social Policy, UCD

01/02/2022

Interdisciplinary collaboration to inform marine environmental management and policy

Tasman Crowe, Director of the Earth Institute at University College Dublin

14/12/2021

Consentification and Treaties: When are Constitutions Not Enough?

Imelda Maher, Sutherland Full Professor of European Law and former Dean of Law, UCD

02/11/2021

New Economics for Sustainable Development to recover better from the pandemic

Chantal Line Carpentier

19/10/2021

Statistics: the key to unlocking the story in data

Claire Gormley, Professor at UCD School of Mathematics and Statistics

27/07/2021

Diversity by Design: Embedding Inclusivity into Products & Solutions

Fiona O’Brien, Chief Channel Officer & Head of Operations, EMEA, Lenovo.

20/07/2021

The Humanities of the Future

Anne Fuchs, Director of the UCD Humanities Institute

13/07/2021

Technology-fueled Innovation

Prag Sharma, Senior Vice President at Citi Innovation Labs

06/07/2021

PostCOVID19 Opportunities for a sustainable 2050

Tess Mateo, Advisor to AQAL Capital, the United Nations on Gender and Climate, and Managing Director CXCatalysts.

29/06/2021

Precision Nutrition- Food for Thought?

Professor Lorraine Brennan, Full Professor of Human Nutrition in University College Dublin

15/06/2021

COVID-19 - An extraordinary time for research

Orla Feely, Vice President for Research, Innovation and Impact and Professor of Electronic Engineering at UCD

08/06/2021

Providing a compass not a map - cultivating interdisciplinary research

Patricia Maguire, Professor of Biochemistry in the UCD College of Science and Director of the UCD Institute for Discovery

25/05/2021

The voice of the public in research

Ruth Freeman, Director – Science for Society, Science Foundation Ireland

18/05/2021

Intel unleashed – preparing for the future!

Bernard Capraro, Research Manager, Silicon Technology, Intel Research & Development Ireland

11/05/2021

Training the Next Generation of Machine Learning Leaders

Brian Mac Namee, Associate Professor School of Computer, UCD

27/04/2021

How to improve your mental well-being while working from home

Olivia Maguire, Portfolio Manager in the J.P. Morgan Asset Management (JPMAM) Global Liquidity team in London

20/04/2021

Citizenship Matters

Iseult Honohan, Associate Professor Emeritus at the UCD School of Politics and International Relations

23/03/2021

Why Interdisciplinary Researchers will never be Unemployed

Naoimh O’Connor, Research Careers Manager in UCD

16/03/2021

Can the Pandemic have the ‘Medici-effect’ on Cybersecurity

Niall McGrath, Snr. Director at DocuSign - Security Operations

09/03/2021

Converting a Great Idea into a Global Business - What does it take?

Tom Flanagan, Director of Enterprise and Commercialisation, UCD Research and Innovation, NovaUCD

02/03/2021

Tuberculosis: The Forgotten Pandemic

Stephen Gordon, Professor at UCD School of Veterinary Medicine

23/02/2021

Finance as a Force for Energy Transition

Keith Tuffley, Global Co-Head of the Sustainability & Corporate Transitions group at Citi

09/02/2021

Phase III: The UCD O’Brien Centre for Science

Padraig Dunne, Professor UCD School of Physics, Academic Lead, Science Phase III

02/02/2021

Digital Transformation in a Post Covid-19 World

Cathriona Hallahan, Managing Director, Microsoft Ireland

27/01/2021

COVID-19 Profit Warnings: Delivering Bad News in a Time of Crisis

Niamh Brennan, Michael MacCormac Professor of Management at University College Dublin (UCD), Founder/Academic Director of the UCD Centre for Corporate Governance

19/01/2021

Passion! Not Points!

Brian Mooney, “Irish Times Columnist”, Guidance Counsellor and "The End of Career, Guidance Counsellor" at Standard Life Ireland

12/01/2021

Popular Culture & Covid-19

Diane Negra, Professor of Film Studies and Screen Culture at University College Dublin (UCD)

08/12/2020

Technology for good: supporting the way we connect, work, innovate & live

Anne Sheehan, Director, Vodafone Business UK

01/12/2020

The Technology Fallacy

Dr. Gerald C. (Jerry) Kane, Professor of Information Systems and Faculty Director of the Edmund H. Shea, Jr. Center for Entrepreneurship at Boston College’s Carroll School of Management

17/11/2020

Why People of Colour in Ireland Need Allies, Not Bystanders

Ebun Joseph, co-founder and coordinator of the first Black Studies module in Ireland at UCD.

10/11/2020

Brexit, Borders and Chicken

Ben Tonra, MRIA, Professor of International Relations at the UCD School of Politics and International Relations

03/11/2020

The Role of Social and Behavioural Research in Strategic Communications

Rob Mooney, Deputy Head of Communications, NPHET Behavioural Change Subgroup, Covid Tracker App Dev Team

20/10/2020

Poems that Solve Puzzles: The History and Science of Algorithms

Chris Bleakley, Associate Professor and Head of the School of Computer Science at University College Dublin (UCD)

13/10/2020

Cybersecurity Talent Challenges: The Lost Summer Project

Owen O'Connor, Director, Information Security at Salesforce

06/10/2020

The Future of Mathematics

Peter Lynch, Emeritus Professor at the UCD School of Mathematics and Statistics.

29/09/2020

What Wearables Can Tell Us About Ourselves (and the World)

Conor Heneghan, Director of Research Algorithms at Fitbit.

15/09/2020

Returning to our Roots to Combat a Crisis

Muthoni Masinde, Professor of Computer Science and Founder and CEO of ITIKI.

08/09/2020

Transforming Healthcare using AI - Lessons from Ophthalmology

Pearse Keane, Consultant Ophthalmologist at Moorfields Eye Hospital, London.

28/07/2020

The New European Green Deal in Ireland

Dr. Eddie O'Connor, Executive Chairman of Mainstream Renewable Power.

23/07/2020

The Future of Work

Barry Winkless, CSO & Head of Cpl Recruitment's Future of Work Institute.

21/07/2020

Glass to grass goodness: Ireland’s dairy opportunity

Zoe Kavanagh, CEO, National Dairy Council

14/07/2020

A human-centred approach to cultural heritage technologies

Luigina Ciolfi, Sheffield Hallam University

07/07/2020

Why Employees Might Be Your Best Defence Against Today’s Cyber Threats

Tom Keating, VP of Engineering & Belfast Site Leader, Proofpoint

30/06/2020

Digital tools to individualise medicine

Eric Topol, Founder & Director Scripps Research Translational Institute, Professor, Molecular Medicine

23/06/2020

Ecosystem collapse in modern Ireland

Pádraic Fogarty, Ecologist, Environmental Scientist, Campaigns Officer, Irish Wildlife Trust

16/06/2020