Newly Appointed TCD Chair in Civil Engineering

Posted on: 06 September 2006

Professor Margaret O’Mahony has been appointed as Trinity College’s new Chair of Civil Engineering. Professor O’Mahony is the first woman in Ireland to hold a chair in this discipline. The TCD chair was established in 1842 and is considered one of oldest chairs in engineering world-wide. 

The Galway-born academic, who has been lecturing in the College for the past 16-years is head of the College’s Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering as well as  Director of TCD’s Centre for Transport Research. She is also to chair the Dublin Transport Authority (DTA) which is to be set up shortly.

Professor O’Mahony is an internationally recognised scholar in engineering research and is an academic leader of a number of major research projects funded by the Higher Education Authority (HEA) under the Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions (PRTLI) in TCD’s  Centre for Transport Research. Such projects include investigating solutions for traffic congestion as well as urban freight, the performance measurement  of public transport services  among many others.

The TCD academic has recently completed a project for the Department of Transport concerning the management of freight movement in cities. She is also  internationally recognised for her work in congestion  pricing where motorists are charged for entering city areas during  peak times. Indeed, Professor O’Mahony’s research  informed the debate in advance to the recently introduced congestion pricing in London.
.
Commenting on her appointment, Professor O’Mahony said: “I am delighted to take up the Chair of Civil Engineering. Civil engineering is an exciting, dynamic and challenging career and more students take this subject at TCD than at any other Irish university.”

“Trinity College is an internationally recognised leader in engineering research and works closely with industry to deliver on Ireland’s infrastructural needs for the future.  I very much look forward to expanding the activities and profile of civil engineering at TCD both nationally and internationally,” concluded  Professor O’ Mahony.