The INFANT Research Centre is tremendously proud to announce the admission of Professor and Director of INFANT  Geraldine Boylan to The Royal Irish Academy alongside other new members, including INFANT Principal Investigator Professor Mairead Kiely.

The Royal Irish Academy is Ireland’s leading body of experts in sciences & humanities, which provides expert advice; manages research projects; publishes books & journals; sustains a library. The RIA has been honouring Ireland’s leading contributors to the world of learning since its establishment in 1785.

New members were commended for their exceptional contributions to the sciences, humanities, and social sciences – as well as to public service at an admittance day ceremony in Dublin.

Geraldine Boylan is Professor of Neonatal Physiology, University College Cork and Director of INFANT, the Irish Centre for Maternal and Child Health Research. She is a leading figure internationally in Newborn Neurophysiology and has championed the use of signal processing and AI for the identification of infants at risk of brain injury. Her research innovations have now been translated to the patient bedside, benefitting newborns worldwide

Mairead Kiely is a Professor in Human Nutrition at University College Cork. She is an international leader in the field of micronutrient research, in particular vitamin D and its impact on health and child development. Prof Kiely is an expert in nutritional risk assessment and contributes to several international advisory groups in Public Health Nutrition.  

Also elected members were: Katherine Browne (University College Dublin); Mary Cannon (Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, University of Medicine and Health Sciences); Karen Corrigan (Newcastle University); Mary Cosgrove (TCD); Rónadh Cox (Williams College); Gary Donohoe (NUI Galway); Fiona Doohan (UCD); Linda Doyle (TCD); Mary Doyle (Trinity Long Room Hub); Gladys Ganiel (Queen’s University Belfast); Andreas Hess (UCD); David Jones (QUB); Patricia Kearney (UCC); JoAnne Mancini (Maynooth University); Niamh Moloney (London School of Economics); Orla Muldoon (University of Limerick); Siobhán Mullally (NUIG); James P O’Gara (NUIG) Stefan Oscarson (UCD); Ann Rigney (Utrecht University); Jane Roberts (University of London); David Stifter (MU); Virginia Teehan (Heritage Council of Ireland) and Patrick Wyse Jackson (TCD).

There are 656 members of the RIA including: Nobel Laureates William C Campbell and John O’Keefe; Louise Richardson, vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford; Frances Ruane, economist; Philip Lane, European Central Bank; Fabiola Gianotti, director general CERN; Brigid Laffan, Irish political scientist and director of the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies and Geraldine Byrne-Nason, Ireland’s permanent representative to the UN.Past Members have included Maria Edgeworth, a pioneer of the modern novel and Nobel laureates WB Yeats; Ernest Walton, Erwin Schrödinger and Seamus Heaney.