Three Trinity alumni receive Fulbright awards for 2025-26
Posted on: 25 July 2025
Awardees will research, innovate and collaborate across a diverse range of fields including multimedia arts, philosophy, medicine, agriculture, education, art history, AI technology in medicine, AI technology in education, visual arts, and health.
Three former Trinity College Dublin students – Dr Dean McHugh, Abigail Moriarty and Ronan McGurrin (pictured above) - were among 18 people to receive Fulbright Irish Awards for 2025-26 this week.
The awardees were announced by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Department of Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht, and the Embassy of the United States of America in Dublin.
The Fulbright programme in Ireland has awarded grants to more than 2,500 Irish and American citizens since 1957.
Candidates from across Ireland are selected to research, study and teach with leading experts at top institutions across the U.S. in disciplines ranging from business, law, health and technology to culture, heritage, the arts, and the Irish language.
From August 2025 to August 2026, they will attend institutions ranging from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Georgia Institute of Technology, and the University of Kansas to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Maxine Greene Institute, and the University of Colorado Boulder.
Awardees will research, innovate and collaborate across a diverse range of fields including multimedia arts, philosophy, medicine, agriculture, education, art history, AI technology in medicine, AI technology in education, visual arts, and health.
Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistants (FLTAs) will teach the Irish language and attend Irish language Immersion weekends at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, College of Our Lady of the Elms, University of Montana, and the University of Notre Dame.
U.S. Ambassador to Ireland, Edward S. Walsh, said: “The Fulbright Program plays a crucial role in strengthening ties between the United States and Ireland. Through educational and cultural exchanges, Fulbright awardees work toward fostering mutual understanding and finding solutions to global issues, ensuring that our extraordinary transatlantic relationship continues to flourish. I congratulate this year’s awardees on their success.”
More on the awardees: Dr Dean McHugh is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Edinburgh. He completed a PhD and MSc at University of Amsterdam’s Institute for Logic, Language and Computation, and a BA in philosophy at Trinity College Dublin.
His research deals with how we explain; what it means to say, for example, “I visited Ellis Island because there is a new exhibit there”, and its connection to hypothetical reasoning—wondering, say, “if they hadn’t installed the exhibit…”. His work combines insights from philosophy, linguistics, logic, and cognitive science. Dean will be based at the New York University department of philosophy, supervised by Kit Fine. His project, “The meaning of ‘Why’”, combines his work on explanations with Fine’s expertise on how we reason with alternative possibilities. He will test the project’s results on cases where hypothetical reasoning plays a central role, examining how we answer questions such as, “why were they fired/denied treatment/…?”."
Ronan McGurrin is an Irish diplomat and qualified barrister. He completed his undergraduate Law and Political Science Degree at Trinity College Dublin. As a diplomat, he has served in the Disarmament and Non-Proliferation (international arms control) Unit in Ireland's Department of Foreign Affairs and as Deputy Head of Mission at the Embassy of Ireland in Nigeria. As a Fulbright Irish Student Awardee, Ronan will pursue the Master of Laws (LL.M.) program at Harvard Law School, focusing on disarmament and international security.
Abigail Moriarty is a graduate of European Studies from Trinity College Dublin. While studying in Trinity, she sat as Eagarthóir Gaeilge at the University Times for two years. Abigail taught beginners Irish classes at Gael Linn and worked as a member of Trinity’s Student Union Rannóg an Aistriúcháin. She is a native of County Kerry, where she first came to appreciate the richness of Irish culture and Gaelic games. While in the U.S., Abigail looks forward to sharing her knowledge and enthusiasm with those at the University of Montana as a Fulbright FLTA Awardee.
ENDS