In a ceremony on 21 May 2024, 28 newly elected Members were officially admitted to the Academy, for their exceptional contributions to the sciences, humanities and social sciences, as well as to public service. Among those admitted were Director of the Trinity Long Room Hub, Professor Eve Patten.
Eve Patten is professor of English at Trinity College Dublin. She is recognised internationally as an authority on nineteenth-century Ireland, and for her nuanced explorations of the Irish-English cultural dialogue. Her publications include a book about writer Olivia Manning (Cork University Press, 2012), and more recently Ireland, Revolution, and the English Modernist Imagination (Oxford, 2022).
Poul Holm, the inaugural director of the Trinity Long Room Hub, was also among those admitted to the Academy in Friday’s ceremony.
He is professor of Environmental History at Trinity College Dublin and director of the Centre for Environmental History. His research focuses on the human exploitation of the sea and his current European Research Council-funded Synergy project, ‘4-OCEANS’, will create a world atlas of marine exploitation through the last two millennia. He serves as vice-president of Academia Europaea and chair of the Humanities Class.
New Honorary Members elected to the Academy include Professor Donald McDonnell (Duke University), Professor Ann Graybiel (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Professor Patrick McGorry (University of Melbourne), and Professor James Chandler (University of Chicago.
Professor James Chandler is William B. Ogden Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the recipient of numerous distinguished fellowships. From 2001 to 2018, he served as Director of the Franke Institute for the Humanities at the University of Chicago. He has developed new and influential models for the study of British, Irish and American culture while advocating for, supporting and advancing interdisciplinary research in the humanities, via major grants from the Mellon foundation.
He served as a member of the Trinity Long Room Hub’s External Advisory Board from 2015-2018.
Professor Pat Guiry, President of the Royal Irish Academy, said:
“Ireland should be immensely proud of these 28 women and men who have been elected by their peers and have brought international acclaim to our country through their distinct areas of research. As Members of the Royal Irish Academy they will support and strengthen our capacity to achieve our strategic goals and objectives as we look to the launch of our Strategic Plan 2024-2028 in the coming weeks.”
For more information on the new members, click here.