New Fellows Dinner
Dining Hall, Trinity College Dublin
Thursday, 11 October 2012
Good evening, and welcome all of you to our new Fellows Dinner.
Tonight we celebrate thirteen new Fellows, three new Professorial Fellows, and two Honorary Fellowships.
Fellowship of Trinity College Dublin is a singular distinction. In Trinity’s first charter in 1592, three Fellows were named; a generation later in 1620, there were sixteen Fellows.
The numbers, the roles and the functions of Fellows have diversified over the College’s four hundred year history.
According to the Trinity historian, R.B. McDowell - in the early nineteenth century, Fellows were recruited on the results of an examination which (I quote) “except perhaps that for admission to the Chinese civil service, had a good claim to its reputation as the most gruelling public examination in the world.”
And once they’d passed this gruelling exam, Fellows faced a gruelling workload. Trinity was known for “exacting the most overwhelming labour from its Fellows... by the mental treadmill of the classes and daily lectures”.
This was so much the case that William Rowan Hamilton only accepted the Professorship of Astronomy in 1827 on condition that he did not compete for Fellowship. He justified this by saying: “As a Fellow, on the present system, I would either have had no time for pursuing Science, or must have made that time by exertions at extra hours and to the injury of my health”. Happily the condition of Fellows is now much improved, and I think no present-day Hamilton would refuse the honour.
Fellows have a central role in the governance of the College. To them falls the great task of moulding the College’s distinctive traditions in each new generation. They are elected by other Fellows on the basis of serious scholarly work of international standing. And as I welcome now each new Fellow by name, position, and by saying something about their scholarly work, we can but admire the range, diversity and the quality of the research being carried out today in Trinity.
FELLOWS
Deirdre Ahern (Dr)
Deirdre Ahern is a Lecturer in the School of Law and author of Directors' Duties: Law and Practice (2009) on the legal obligations of company directors. She has engaged in interdisciplinary research on ageing and has worked with the Law Reform Commission on reform proposals on the legal capacity of vulnerable adults.
Peter Arnds (Dr)
Peter Arnds directs both the MPhil in Comparative Literature and the Centre of Literary Translation, as well as lecturing in the German and Italian departments. An expert on the work of Nobel Laureate Gunter Grass, and he is also a published poet.
Shane Butler (Dr)
Shane Butler is in the School of Social Work and Social Policy and specializes in the field of alcohol and illicit drug policy. His publications include Alcohol, Drugs and Health Promotion in Modern Ireland [2002] and Benign Anarchy: Alcoholics Anonymous in Ireland [2010]. He has served on governmental advisory committees and on the voluntary committees of drug and alcohol agencies.
David Chew (Dr)
David Chew is a Lecturer in Geology in the School of Natural Sciences. His research interests involve applying analytical techniques in geochronology and isotope geochemistry to problems in the field of tectonics. He has led two SFI-funded projects on isotopic dating of sedimentary rocks.
Derek Doherty (Dr)
Derek Doherty is a Lecturer in Immunology in the School of Medicine. He runs a group in the Institute of Molecular Medicine that is investigating the role and treatment potential of the immune system in hepatitis B and C, in HIV infection, and in autoimmune disease and cancer.
Peter Gallagher (Dr)
Peter Gallagher leads the Solar Physics Group and is Director of the Physics and Astrophysics degree in the School of Physics. He is a member of numerous ESA and NASA satellite teams, including ESA's Solar Orbiter, which will be launched in 2017 to explore the inner solar system for the first time.
Andrew Jackson (Dr)
Andrew Jackson is an evolutionary ecologist in the School of Natural Sciences. He researches into novel mathematical and computational models to understand how evolution has shaped complex systems of animal societies, and ecological communities that are dynamic, self-organising and stable.
Ed Lavelle (Dr)
Ed Lavelle is in the School of Biochemistry and Immunology. His research focuses on how vaccine adjuvants trigger immune responses and on strategies to increase the effectiveness of both injectable and mucosal vaccines.
Aideen Long (Dr)
Aideen Long is Senior Lecturer in Molecular Medicine in the Department of Clinical Medicine, and is Principal Investigator in the Institute of Molecular Medicine, where her research focuses on the signalling aspects of leukocyte-endothelial cell interaction with particular emphasis on the role of the Protein Kinase C (PKC) family of isoenzymes in T lymphocyte signaling. She is President of the Irish Society for Immunology.
Graeme Murdock (Dr)
Graeme Murdock is Assistant Professor of European History in the School of Histories and Humanities and Director of the Centre for Early Modern History. His research focuses on Calvinist religious life and culture in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe.
Lorraine O'Driscoll (Dr)
Lorraine O'Driscoll is Lecturer in Pharmacology at the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. She focuses on translational cancer research, where outputs have included patents, and Phase I/II clinical trials.
Sam Slote (Dr)
Sam Slote is Assistant Professor in the School of English, with primary research interests in James Joyce and Samuel Beckett. He is the co-director of the Samuel Beckett Summer School at Trinity College, and his annotated edition of Ulysses has just been published by Alma Classics.
Emma Stokes (Dr)
Emma Stokes is a Senior Lecturer in Physiotherapy. Her clinical research has focused on physiotherapy intervention for stroke sufferers. She is Vice-President of the World Confederation for Physical Therapy.
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PROFESSORIAL FELLOWSHIP
Khurshid Ahmad (Prof)
Khurshid Ahmad is the Professor of Computer Science. His research areas include artificial intelligence, neural networks, and fuzzy logic. He works closely on behavioural finance with colleagues in the School of Business, and on cell image annotation in the School of Medicine. His current work on the impact of sentiment on the prices of equities and commodities, and on systems for facilitating governance and risk assessment in financial systems, is funded by Enterprise Ireland.
Joseph Barry (Prof)
Joseph Barry is Professor of Population Health Medicine in the Department of Public Health and Primary Care. In addition to research and advocacy on drug related issues, he has published in relation to prisoner health, health inequalities and health data systems. He is a member of the National Advisory Committee on Drugs and is on the Board of Directors of the Irish Penal Reform Trust and Alcohol Action Ireland.
Louise Gallagher (Prof)
Louise Gallagher, who cannot be with us tonight, she is Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist. Her research focuses on autism spectrum disorders and other complex neurodevelopmental disorders. Her research seeks to better understand the clinical presentation, neurobiology and underlying genetic susceptibility of ASD.
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HONORARY FELLOWSHIPS
President Michael D. Higgins
It’s an honour to have elected to Fellowship our President, Michael D. Higgins, who unfortunately cannot be with us tonight. We recognise him as an academic, a social theorist, and a poet. In his inaugural address, President Higgins called movingly for “an active inclusive citizenship, based on participation, equality, respect for all, and the flowering of creativity in all its forms.” These are also the values we seek for our students.
Clive Lee (Prof)
And tonight we honour just one other individual, Clive Lee, Professor of Anatomy in the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland - and at the Royal Hibernian Academy. A world-leading authority on diseases of the musculo-skeletal system, he is a graduate of Trinity and has maintained a strong connection with this university as a researcher and lecturer, and I have seen with my own eyes that he is also a cricketer!
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I congratulate all our new Fellows. Each of you has achieved so much - both here in Trinity, and elsewhere. I am sorry that I have only had time to ‘gallop’ through your career highs. Each of you could merit a speech of your own. We are very proud that you have chosen to enhance this university through your research and teaching and we look forward to the continuance and deepening of our relationship with you.
Thank You.