EGA Spring Newsletter Published

The Spring issue of the new look Engineers Newsletter has just been published and circulated to all EGA Members.

 

It was fabulous to see a UCD Electronic Engineer Professor Orla Feely appointed UCD Vice President for Research, Innovation and Impact. Note the last word 'Impact'! That tells me three things - firstly that Orla's track record is one of 'impact' on all the academic and industrial roles she has occupied. Secondly it also tells me that our new President Dr Andrew Deeks clearly wants very tangible research outcomes from future UCD Research.

Professor Orla Feely

Finally and most importantly I believe that the research efforts of the UCD College of Engineering has not received the finance and support systems it deserves - from Science Foundation Ireland and from UCD. I believe that both organisations now realise that and the appointment of engineering Presidents and Vice President will ensure that the mistakes of the past will not happen again.

 

If you look over my Blogs of the past year and indeed my Blogs two years ago as President of Engineers Ireland you will find repeated complaints from me on this very issue. Even the Irish media together with IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland were rightly supporting the "Life Sciences" as driving Ireland's growth even in recession but perhaps not realising that it was Engineers and Engineering Manufacturing of products for export in IT, pharma and biomedical devices that was keeping the Irish economy barely alive for the past five years.

 

Of course the foundations sciences for this manufacturing were chemistry, physics, biology and mathematics but it was Engineering Design and Innovation that delivered the products for export. That message now also seems to have got to the Irish People as the huge surge for Engineering courses manifest themselves in this year's CAO applications.

 

Also we recorded the award of the UCD 2014 Foundation Medal to Dr David O’Reilly a 1968 Chemical Engineering Graduate who rose to become Chairman and CEO of Chevron Corporation based in US. He has been generous to UCD with setting up of the new UCD Energy Institute. Previous recipients of the Foundation Medal include Peter Sutherland, Maeve Binchy, Brian O’Driscoll and Bill Whelan.

Dr David O'Reilly

 

I was also delighted to see in the Newsletter a Memorial Symposium in honour of the late Professor ET Hanrahan. Eamon was certainly one of the 'founding fathers' of Geotechnical Engineering in Ireland. He lectured me for my Civil Engineering Degree and was fascinating to listen on the strength and behaviour of the glacial soils that overlay our bedrock in Ireland. I was also lectured on waste and wastewater by Professor Tom Casey who is also in the following photograph together with current Head of School Dr Mark Richardson and the Hanrahan family.

Pictured  (l-r): Dr Mark Richardson, Head School of Civil Structural

and Environmental Engineering; Prof. Máire Ní Annracháin, Professor of Modern Irish

Language and Literature; Emeritus Professor Tom Casey; Mrs. Deirdre Hanrahan;

Prof. Mairéad Hanrahan Department of French, University College London; Dr Tadhg

O'Hannrachain, Senior Lecturer, School of History and Archives; Dr Mike Long,

School of Civil Structural and Environmental Engineering

I was also much taken by the adventurous story of one of our most recent graduates. Fionán O'Sullivan graduated in Electronic Engineering only last year and went to work in the UK for Jaguar Land Rover. His is a story of daring manufacture having regard to 'torque control, regenerative breaking systems and management of high voltage batteries'.

 

Fionán O’Sullivan

It wasn't all 'work and no play' for our Fionán as describes the night life of Warwick a university town where he says that 'there is a fantastic after-work social scene'. He says there's also Coventry 'but there be dragons'. I can imagine.

My sincere compliments and thanks to Fionán and hope that through this edition on line his story goes far and wide to our many UCD graduates across the globe and whose happy stories we also want to hear and spread in this Newsletter.