EurGeol Mairead Glennon PGeo
EurGeol Mairéad Glennon PGeo is President of the Institute of Geologists of Ireland and is Product Development Manager of Geological Survey Ireland’s Tellus programme. Mairéad graduated from Trinity College Dublin in 2004 (B.A. Natural Science) and from Newcastle University in 2008 (M.Sc. Applied Hydrogeology). Mairéad previously worked in the private sector as a contaminated land hydrogeologist and then as a self-employed geoscientist contracted to Geological Survey Ireland from 2009 to 2016. During this time Mairéad was a manager on the award-winning Tellus programme, managing regional geochemical and geophysical surveying, public outreach and stakeholder engagement. Mairéad now manages Product Development, focussed on the use of applied Tellus geoscience data to support mineral exploration, agriculture, environment and public health in Ireland. Mairéad previously served as secretary (2017-2018) and board member (2013-2017) of the Institute of Geologists of Ireland and was a founding committee member of the Ireland Brownfield Network.
EurGeol Dr. Eibhlin Doyle PGeo
EurGeol Dr. Eibhlin Doyle PGeo is Chief Geologist and heads up the Exploration and Mining Division- technical of the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment. She has worked in exploration sector with Barymin, Conroy Petroleum and Natural Resources (later to become Arcon) with whom she discovered the Galmoy zinc-lead deposit in Co. Kilkenny, with BHP where she was the company’s exploration manager for Ireland. She joined the Geological Survey Ireland in 1999 and had responsibilities for the Groundwater, Marine and Minerals Sections. In 2009 she was appointed to lead the Technical staff of the Exploration and Mining Division which regulates the minerals industry in Ireland. Eibhlín was the inaugural president of the IGI and was chairperson of the Professional Affairs Committee which she set up while president of the IAEG.
EurGeol Assoc. Prof. Marko Komac
Marko is an independent consultant, an external part-time researcher at the University of Ljubljana, an Assoc. Prof. for GIS at the UNI of Nova Gorica, and the President of the Board of the European Federation of Geologists (EFG). From 2006 to 2014 he was the director of the Geological Survey of Slovenia. From 2012-2016 he was a Vice-President of the IUGS, and in 2011 and 2012 the President of the EuroGeoSurveys. He has more than 21 years of experiences in landslide analyses, GIS, remote sensing in geology, spatial analyses and modelling. Currently he’s involved in several EFG H2020 funded projects. He’s a (co)author of more than 500 bibliographic units mainly from the above listed research areas and several times IronMan 70.3 finisher.
Prof. John Sweeney
Emeritus Professor John Sweeney from Maynooth University is a graduate of the University of Glasgow. He has taught climatology at Maynooth and a number of universities in North America and Africa and has published over 100 scientific papers and authored/edited/co-authored 4 texts on various aspects of Irish climate. He has served as President of the Irish Meteorological Society, the Geographical Society of Ireland and An Taisce, the National Trust for Ireland as well as being the Irish representative on a number of European academic bodies. He has been involved in various international research projects and has led several national research projects examining aspects of climate change in Ireland. Professor Sweeney contributed to the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. He is also a regular contributor to print and broadcast media on matters related to climate change science and policy.
Dr. Cara Augustenborg
Dr. Cara Augustenborg is a Fellow in Environmental Policy at University College Dublin, co-host of the Down To Earth slot with Ivan Yates on Newstalk FM, and a Member of President Michael D. Higgins Council of State. She also sits on the advisory committees of the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Dialogue for Climate Action and is a former Chairperson of Friends of the Earth Europe and Friends of the Earth Ireland.
Nic Bilham C.Geol
Nic is at the University of Exeter, where he researches responsible sourcing of minerals, the relationship between mining and the circular economy, and the challenge of assuring environmental and social impact standards across complex value chains and production-consumption networks. Until 2018, he spent 20 years working at the Geological Society of London, most recently as Director of Policy and Communications. For several years he was one of the UK representatives on the Council of the European Federation of Geologists, and he has a longstanding interest in how the work of professional geoscientists relates to societal challenges, policy-making and public engagement.
Nic is an Executive Council member of the International Association for Promoting Geoethics (IAPG), and chair of trustees of Geology for Global Development (GfGD). He holds a BA in History and Philosophy of Science (University of Cambridge), and an MSc in Science and Technology Policy (University of Sussex).
Ed O’Keefe
Director – Synergy Global
Ed has over 20 years of international experience focused on helping organisations understand and manage their interactions with society. He has played a critical role in the success of numerous sensitive projects.
Ed’s extensive expertise lies in managing the socio-economic impacts of large-scale development projects (including social impact assessments) and management systems, and building processes for effective stakeholder partnerships. He has done this successfully in over 30 countries, particularly in Eurasia and Africa, and works with companies and organisations like Shell, AngloGold Ashanti, the IFC, Rio Tinto, EITI, the DFID, Fauna & Flora International, and other international NGOs. He is a trained ISO 14001 lead auditor and has led numerous external assessments and audits of community relations management systems. Ed has been an external assessor for Newmont’s Five Star Community and External Relations Management System. He currently leads Synergy’s work on skills development; this includes the development and delivery of our innovative community relations practitioner course in partnership with the University of Witwatersrand, and training for ICMM members. Ed has authored papers and delivered public talks on a range of subjects, advancing thinking on issues including indigenous people, poverty and the extractive sector. Ed is based in our UK office in Oxford.
Brendan Slattery
Head of Environment and Planning, McCann FitzGerald
Brendan Slattery is the Head of Environment and Planning at McCann FitzGerald Solicitors. He has been busy with the first major carbon capture and storage project in the State, the BusConnects programme, the fresh applications for consent for the Shannon LNG project, the Greenlink interconnector, renewable energy projects including three 90ktpa AD plants, two offshore wind projects and countless onshore wind projects. Before joining McCanns, Brendan spent five years looking after An Bord Pleanála, defending more than one hundred judicial review challenges. He also represented the Environmental Protection Agency in almost one hundred prosecutions.
Ms Lynda Sullivan
Activism and Community Campaigns Officer at Friends of the Earth
“Lynda Sullivan is currently the Activism and Community Campaigns Officer at Friends of the Earth Northern Ireland. She has previous experience working in the human rights sector in Ireland, for organisations such as Amnesty International and the Human Rights Consortium. From 2012 to 2017 she lived in Latin America accompanying communities who were involved in land and water rights campaigns. Presently she sits on the Boards of the Centre for Global Education and the Latin America Solidarity Centre. Through her work at Friends of the Earth she connects with emerging climate action networks such as Extinction Rebellion and Youth Strike for Climate”
SESSION CHAIRS
Dr Deirdre Lewis PhD PGeo EurGeol is a Technical Director with SLR Consulting Ireland. Since graduation from Trinity College Dublin in 1987, she has worked as a professional geologist in minerals exploration, energy and international development. For the past twenty years she has worked as a consultant on multi-commodity projects internationally for private and public sector clients in Ireland, Europe, Australia, Africa and South America. She has also managed a range of international development projects in resource policy and geo-institutional strengthening for the EU, United Nations and World Bank in Africa, Caribbean and Pacific regions. In this domain, she has carried out numerous stakeholder engagement and social impact assignments.
Deirdre is a past-President of the IGI (2011-13), and is active on the IGI Validation and Disciplinary committees; a member of the European Federation of Geologists (EFG); and a member of the Geosciences Committee of the Royal Irish Academy.
Dr Jonathan Derham, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is a NUI sciences graduate with a Master’s Degree in Public Service Management. Jonathan has worked for over 30 years in the environmental field for public and private sector employers in Ireland and UK, and has broad experience of environmental policy and regulation. He currently heads up the Evidence & Assessment Programme in EPA which incorporates the Climate Dialogue, the Climate Secretariat, Research, Analytics, SEA and State of the Environment Reporting. In previous positions Jonathan worked on mining, waste and contaminated land portfolios.
Koen Verbruggen, PGeo, EuroGeol, MRIA. Koen is the Director of Geological Survey Ireland (GSI), part of the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment. He joined GSI in 2000, working in Minerals and then Information Management where he developed GSI’s free digital data policy. From 2006 he was GSI’s manager for INFOMAR, the national marine mapping programme, which is acknowledged as a global exemplar. In 2012 he helped set up Geoscience Ireland, the business cluster , in 2013 he became Director of GSI and in 2015 was elected for a two year term as President of EuroGeoSurveys. Prior to GSI, Koen worked for 15 years in the international exploration industry. He holds a BSc Geology and MSc Petroleum Geology from University College Dublin, is a Professional Member of the Institute of Geologists of Ireland and the European Federation of Geologists and former President of the Irish Association of Economic Geology. In 2018 Koen was admitted as a Member of the Royal Irish Academy (MRIA).