FGM Activist Ifrah Ahmed receives Trinity honorary degree

Posted on: 28 November 2025

Four exceptional individuals were conferred today with honorary degrees of the University of Dublin at Trinity College Dublin [28 November 2025].  

Somali-Irish activist, educator and social entrepreneur Ifrah Ahmed (below right), Mei Lin Yap (third from left), Ambassador Liaison Officer with the Trinity Centre for Ageing and Intellectual Disability and People Experience Administrator at Cpl Recruitment Agency, computer visionary Pietro Perona (left) and Kathy Prendergast (second from right), one of Ireland's foremost living artists, all received Trinity’s highest honour from Chancellor Dr Mary McAleese at a ceremony conducted in Latin in the historic Public Theatre.   

Trinity awards honorary degrees each year to mark exceptional achievements by individuals in their respective fields. 

Separately, but at the same ceremony, 84-year-old Frank Brady (below), a retired maxillofacial surgeon, was conferred with a doctorate degree in Medicine, joining the small group of octogenarian graduates of Trinity.  

More on the honorary degree candidates: 

Ifrah Ahmed (Doctor in Laws - pictured with Sarah, her daughter) 

Ifrah is a Somali Irish activist, educator, and social entrepreneur who has dedicated her life to eradicating Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C), a form of gender-based violence which she personally survived as a young girl. FGM/C is a violation of the human rights of women and girls. More than 200 million women and girls alive today have experienced FGM/C, and in Somalia, the prevalence rate of FGM/C is 98%. Having fled the Somali civil war, Ifrah Ahmed landed in Dublin, Ireland in 2006. Ifrah quickly found traction in social activism, fighting for the rights of new communities in Ireland. In her early days of community mobilisation, Ifrah worked as an independent advocate engaging policy makers, rights groups, and mainstream organisations. She demonstrated her ability to work as a highly motivated social and community activist involved in many community projects and non-governmental organisations and, working with key political figures, was instrumental in the passing of the legislation banning FGM in Ireland which came into effect in 2012. 

Since 2014, Ifrah also works in Somalia and has developed a range of programmes tackling Gender Based Violence and FGM/C through her foundation, the Ifrah Foundation. 

In September 2021, the Ifrah Foundation launched the Dear Daughter Campaign in Somalia, in partnership with UNFPA Somalia. This campaign takes a multifaceted approach to end FGM, culminating in pledges from parents and carers to protect their daughters. The campaign has thus far surpassed 100,000 pledges. For Ifrah, the fight against FGM/C is both personal and public. She was the first woman to publicly share her testimony of FGM/C with the world in 2010; having been invited to address the United Nations in New York. Through its work, the Foundation has trained over 665 community activists who are now champions against FGM/C in their communities. Another element of that same campaign focusses on inviting individual citizens to pledge to protect their daughters and to bear witness to that promise. 

The Public Orator Anna Chahoud said of Ifrah (translated from Latin oration): "This courageous woman was the first to speak openly and publicly about her experience ...  This woman has beyond doubt succeeded in her mission to ‘stop the fear, the pain, the shame.’ Her contribution to the defence of human rights deserves our highest reward and deepest gratitude.” =

Mei Lin Yap (Doctor in Laws,  pictured with Prof. Mary McCarron, her sponsor) 

Mei Lin Yap is well known in disability circles as the Ambassador Liaison Officer with the Trinity Centre for Ageing and Intellectual Disability (TCAID) at the School of Nursing and Midwifery, Trinity College Dublin, and People Experience Administrator at Cpl Recruitment Agency. She has Down syndrome. Her employment in both roles is significant because it demonstrates that individuals with disabilities can thrive in professional positions, contributing meaningfully to their fields. Her dual roles not only challenge societal barriers but also inspire broader efforts toward improving employment outcomes for people with intellectual disabilities. Mei Lin Yap is a proud Dublin-born woman who has dedicated herself to championing inclusivity and breaking barriers for people with intellectual disabilities in sports, advocacy, and public speaking. From an early age, Mei Lin’s passion for sport, and her involvement with disability swimming in particular has been both personal and profound: not only has she competed in Special Olympics, she has represented Ireland at international and world level swimming, through the Irish Down Syndrome Sporting Organisation (IDSSO), participating in many countries across the globe but she has also given back as a volunteer, embodying the spirit of Irish camaraderie and perseverance. In her role as Ambassador Liaison Officer at the Trinity Centre for Ageing and Intellectual Disability (TCAID), Mei Lin continues to be a passionate voice for Irish people with intellectual disabilities. In 2018, she was the narrator and a key contributor in “Ageing with Pride,” a documentary displaying the lived experiences and resilience of older Irish adults with intellectual disabilities. As a public speaker, athlete, and leader, she continues to inspire and advocate for a more inclusive and equitable Ireland.  Through her advocacy, athleticism, public speaking, and inclusive initiatives, she is an exemplar of what can be achieved when there is genuine Patient Public Involvement in Research and is proof of what is possible when people with intellectual disabilities are given equal opportunities to thrive and lead. 

The Public Orator Anna Chahoud called Mei Lin “a bright star whose light guides everyone around her,” adding: “We are honoured to celebrate a woman who has invested her life in the creation of an equitable society, where no-one is left behind, who generously shares her love for life and passion for justice, who sparks hope and confidence that everyone’s ability is the ability to make a difference.” 

Pietro Perona (Doctor in Science) 

Pietro Perona is the Allen E. Puckett Professor of Electrical Engineering and of Computation and Neural Systems at the California Institute of Technology. A pioneer in the field of computer vision, Professor Perona has made foundational contributions to the ability of computers to perceive and recognize the visual world—discoveries that form the scientific basis of many contemporary applications of artificial intelligence. Beyond his technical achievements, Professor Perona has demonstrated a commitment to using science for the public good. Working with his collaborators, and in partnership with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the iNaturalist Foundation, he led the creation of the free smartphone apps Merlin Bird ID, iNaturalist. These tools employ advanced computer vision to identify over 100,000 species of plants and animals from photographs—and, for birds, from their songs—allowing anyone, anywhere, to explore nature and contribute directly to biodiversity research. Through these innovations, Professor Perona has empowered millions of citizens worldwide to take part in ecological observation and conservation. With an h-index exceeding 125 and over 186,000 citations, his scholarship ranks among the most influential in computer science. His work has been recognized with the Koenderink Prize (2010) and the Longuet-Higgins Prize (2013) for fundamental contributions to computer vision, and has been featured in The New York Times, The New Yorker, and The Los Angeles Times. A thinker of remarkable breadth, he has also brought art and science together through the co-organization of a NeuroArt exhibition exploring creativity and neuromorphic design. By honouring Professor Perona, Trinity affirms its commitment to scientific excellence, environmental stewardship, and the responsible use of artificial intelligence in the service of humanity and the natural world. 

The Public Orator Anna Chahoud praised Prof. Perona as a “visionary scientist”, stating: “He has both proved and disproved the ancient belief that ‘the nature of the creatures contained in the world is no less important than the study of almost any other area of knowledge, albeit here the human mind is not capable of exploring the whole field’ (Pliny, Natural History 7.1).” 

Kathy Prendergast (Doctor in Letters) 

Kathy Prendergast is one of Ireland’s foremost living artists. Her work addresses various dimensions of identity, for example, it reflects the condition of being Irish within a local, national, and global environment, from intimate domestic observations to conditions of migration, both in the past (and the heritage it infers), and the present, and of participation in a wider world culture. While her work includes factors relevant to being Irish, this is just one aspect of several criteria for identity, including gender, inter/cross-generation connection, heritage, colonisation, experience, to name a few. Her work is deeply personal and empathetic, though not sentimental, and engenders a response from a range of observers, regardless of gender, age, and ethnicity, as it reflects universal aspects of the human condition. Her work is represented in every major art collection devoted to practitioners deemed Irish (though not confined to those), including public national and civic collections in Ireland, such as the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA), the National Gallery of Ireland, Crawford Gallery Cork, Dublin City/ the Hugh Lane Gallery, Office of Public Works, the art collections in universities (including Trinity College), as well as in significant collections, both corporate and private, at state, semi-state, and a private level. She represented Ireland at the Venice Biennale in 1995 and was awarded the Premio 2000 best young artist award for her sensitive celebrated city drawings series which were shown in other prestigious venues including the Tate Gallery, London, and IMMA in Dublin. Her artwork has featured significantly in several solo and group exhibitions in Trinity art galleries, particularly the Douglas Hyde Gallery, such as the Black Maps exhibition (2017), and Land (2024–25). Her work has been included in undergraduate and post-graduate degrees, in modules on Irish- based modern and contemporary art and has also been the subject of a range of research theses in various third-level institutions. Her work was also reproduced as the frontispiece in a major text edited by two Trinity alumni and former lecturers in art history, Catherine Marshall (who was subsequently invited to take on the role of Curator of the Collections, at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, soon after its inception) and Dr Yvonne Scott (founding Director of the Irish Art Research Centre, former Associate Professor of Art History in the Department of the History of Art, and Fellow Emeritus at the University). The book was published by the Royal Hibernian Academy, and launched by the current Provost of Trinity College Dublin, Linda Doyle, in recognition of its relevance to Irish culture. Kathy Prendergast is a member of Aosdána. 

The Public Orator Anna Chahoud praised “the evocative, enigmatic, and empathetic art of Kathy Prendergast” as she urged people to view her artworks, which she described as follows: “Individual experiences and personal perceptions of places and our position in them are recurring motifs in this artist’s work, expressed in the juxtaposition of different techniques – drawing, sculpture, installation – and deliberately non-precious materials—wool and yarn, stones and rocks, desiccated flowers, wool, found objects, and, most importantly, maps.” 

ENDS 

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