The Royal Irish Academy (RIA) has elected three of NUI Galway’s top academics for admission in recognition of their academic achievement.

NUI Galway’s Professor Peter McHugh, Professor Colin O’Dowd and Professor Donal O’Regan were among twenty-three scholars in total from around Ireland who joined the ranks of Ernest Walton, Erwin Schrodinger, Seamus Heaney and Mary Robinson by becoming Members of the Royal Irish Academy.

Membership is awarded to persons who have attained distinction in education and research. The NUI Galway professors work in the fields of Biomedical Engineering, Climate Physics and Mathematics.

NUI Galway President, Dr James J. Browne, commented: “Research and academic excellence are the cornerstones of all that we do here at NUI Galway. My colleagues’ attainment of what is the highest academic honour in Ireland is testament to the calibre of our staff and research.”

Professor Peter McHugh
Peter McHugh is the Established Professor of Biomedical Engineering at NUI Galway. He is an internationally recognised expert in biomechanics, and works closely with clinicians and industry in order to develop mathematical models of human tissue and medical implants in an effort to understand their precise behaviour and to facilitate the design of new treatments and clinical procedures. Professor McHugh is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineers of Ireland and a recipient of the Silver Medal of the Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland. His research is widely published and highly cited in high impact international journals.

Professor Colin O’Dowd
Colin O’Dowd is Personal Professor in the School of Physics and Director of the Centre for Climate and Air Pollution Studies at the Ryan Institute, NUI Galway. He is internationally recognised for his innovations, publications and international leadership in the fields of atmospheric aerosol formation, transformation and climate effects. Professor O’Dowd has been joint-chief editor of the premier atmospheric science journal (JGR-Atmospheres), and has been awarded Fellowship of the Institute of Physics, Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society, International Smoluchowski Award, and a DSc by the University of Manchester.

Professor Donal O’Regan
Donal O’Regan is a Personal Professor of Mathematics at NUI Galway. He is internationally recognised as an expert in the field of Nonlinear Analysis, and he has made valuable contributions to fixed-point theory for single and multivalued maps, critical-point theory, operator equations and inclusions, degree theory and oscillation theory. Professor O’Regan has published extensively in prestigious, high impact factor ISI journals, and his many books and papers are highly cited. He also serves on editorial boards for many international journals.

The Royal Irish Academy, which was founded in 1785 and has now 455 members, is the principal learned society in Ireland. Those elected to membership are entitled to use the designation ’MRIA’ after their name.