STEERING COMMITTEE
The Dublin Chemistry Steering Committee acts to challenge and support the Dublin Chemistry Management Committee helping Dublin Chemistry achieve and maintain the highest standards of education. The committee brings together a wealth of experience across the academic, public and industrial sectors. Through this committee the long term development of the Programme will be guided.
Seamus Grant
Dr Seamus Grant is the Director of the Henkel Research and Development Center in Tallaght Dublin , Seamus graduated from University College Dublin in 1974 where he completed a Ph.D in the area of Organometallic chemistry with Prof . A .R. Manning in 1977.
Following his Ph.D he joined the Research and Development group of Loctite ( now Henkel ) as a Product Development Scientist. Over the next 20 years he worked on the development of adhesives and sealants for a wide variety of Industrial applications, From 1996- 2001 he was Worldwide Head of the Electronics Product Development group. During this period he worked with laboratories in USA, Asia and Europe and was involved in the acquisition and integration of several major companies. In 2003 he was appointed the Director of the R & D center in Tallaght. In this laboratory a team of over 100 scientific staff are involved in the development of technology and products for the automotive, consumer, medical and general assembly industries.
John Murphy
John Murphy is Director of WestCHEM, the newly formed integrated Research School in Chemistry for the West of Scotland. John Murphy was born in Dublin in 1955 and educated at Trinity College, Dublin (BA 1976) and the University of Cambridge (PhD 1980). He obtained his DSc in 2002. After his PhD, he held Fellowships at the University of Alberta and the University of Oxford, he moved to the University of Nottingham as Lecturer, and was promoted to Reader there. He moved to his current position as Merck-Pauson Professor of Chemistry at the University of Strathclyde in 1995. He has also been a visiting Professor at a number of institutions and was Visiting Fellow to the Australian National University in 1995 and 2007. He held a Royal Society Leverhulme Senior Research Fellowship in 2001.He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (National Academy of Scotland) in 2001.
Marie O'Regan
Marie currently holds the position of Technology Director at DuPont Displays, Santa Barbara, CA. She previously worked at UNIAX Corporation, a company founded by two professors from the University of California, Santa Barbara, Alan Heeger (Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 2001) and Paul Smith, and at Eastman Kodak Co. as a research scientist. Marie received her B.Sc. degree in Chemistry from University College Dublin in 1986 (Ryan Medallist). She obtained her Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry in 1991 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under the supervision of Professor Richard Schrock (Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 2005).
Serge Perez
Received his doctorate from the University of Bordeaux, France. He is currently the director of Doctoral School of Chemistry/ Life Sciences at the Joseph Fourier Grenoble University. He is a senior research scientist Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, and was formally director of the CNRS Centre de Recherches sur les Macromolécules Végétales. Serge is a member of a number of scientific committees including the French National Committee for Scientific Research (2000-2008). Elected national representative to the European Carbohydrate Organisation. (1995-99; 2000-2003) Elected chairman of the French Molecular Graphics Society (1991-94). Elected chairman of the French Carbohydrate Society (1993-95). Is a member of 10 scientific societies and has been on the editorial board of a number of chemistry journals with over 225 publications in refereed journals.
Don Thornhill
Dr. Don Thornhill is a consultant and adviser on strategy and policy. In relation to research policy and funding, he played the key role in the development and roll out of the Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions (PRTLI). He was also involved in the setting up and subsequent governance of Science Foundation Ireland (SFI). He completed a seven year term as executive chairman of the Higher Education Authority (HEA) in January 2005. Prior to his appointment to the HEA he was Secretary General of the Department of Education and Science from 1993 to 1998.
He is a graduate of University College Dublin (B.Sc. and Ph.D. (Chemistry)) and Trinity College Dublin (M.Sc. (Econ.)). During 1987 he was a Fulbright Scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington DC. He is an elected member of the Royal Irish Academy. His board memberships, in addition to the NCC and IPSO, include the Irish Management Institute, Forfás (the Irish Government statutory policy and advisory board for enterprise, trade, science, technology and innovation), Science Foundation Ireland (SFI), the Irish Taxation Institute and he is deputy chairperson of the recently established Chartered Accountants Regulatory Board.
