Student Success

NUI Awards

Graduates and students of NUI Galway featured prominently again in 2015 at the annual NUI Awards ceremony which took place in November in the Royal Hospital Kilmainham, taking home an impressive 30 awards. This brings to 70 the number of awards in the last two years.

NUI Awards honour scholars of distinction at every stage of their academic studies, from undergraduates to senior scholars well established in their fields of expertise.

NUI Galway graduates received a number of awards, including an outstanding Five Travelling Studentships – one in the Humanities and four in the Sciences. The Dr Mary Thornton Scholarship in Education was shared by two winners, both connected to NUI Galway. These awards will support postgraduate and doctoral research in a variety of subjects, from human rights in Uganda to bioprosthetic heart valves.

NUI Galway graduate Dr Ciaran O’Neill was awarded a Special Commendation in connection with the Publication Prize in Irish History 2015, for his new work Catholics of Consequence: Transnational Education, Social Mobility and the Irish Catholic Elite, 1850 – 1900 (Oxford University Press, 2014).

NUI Galway undergraduates were equally successful. Students received the Mansion House Fund Scholarship in Irish History, the Mansion House Fund Prize in Irish, two medals in the Dr H H Stewart Literary Scholarship competitions, and twentyone medals in the Dr H H Stewart Medical Scholarship competitions, including nine first prizes.

Sports Scholarships

NUI Galway supports athletes from a range of sports in their academic and athletic endeavours. The University presented 30 outstanding athletes with NUI Galway Student Sports Scholarships in November 2015. The ceremony commenced with a special address by Irish and Connacht Rugby player, Robbie Henshaw, who is also an NUI Galway student. Fresh from his return from Ireland’s recent Rugby World Cup campaign, Robbie spoke to the scholarship students and parents about his recent experiences and the demands of world class sport.

This year’s ceremony saw the Performance Points Sports Scholarship awarded to eight outstanding athletes. The scheme provides 40 additional points to those earned in the Leaving Certificate for elite athletes, for academic courses over 350 entry points.

In November 2015 NUI Galway was delighted to announce the appointment of Mike Heskin as Director of Sport & Physical Activity. The newly established post underpins NUI Galway’s commitment to further strengthening the sport reputation and ethos of the University.

As Director for Sport & Physical Activity, Mr Heskin will play the lead role in the strategic management of sport and physical activity in the University and the development of the infrastructure necessary for all sports activity to ensure that NUI Galway will remain at the forefront nationally and internationally in sports excellence through elite and high performance.

Mr Heskin will ensure that the University will build on previous successes in attracting top athletes and sportspeople to campus as well as supporting and developing opportunities in the area of sports and physical activity across all faculties, he will also ensure the University’s contribution to Ireland’s playing fields and realise the University’s strategic aspirations in relation to sport, health and well being.

Undergraduate Awards

Louisa Brophy Browne is presented with her medal by Legal Counsel and Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs at the United Nations and Irish barrister, Patricia O’Brien at the Undergraduate Awards.

Cited as the ultimate champion of high-potential undergraduates, and often referred to as a “Junior Nobel Prize”, The Undergraduate Awards is the world’s largest academic awards programme, recognising excellent research and original work across the sciences, humanities, business and creative arts.

Jonathan O’Rourke won the Classical Studies & Archaeology category for his paper ‘Self and the Other: The Construction of Barbarian Identity in Antiquity’.

This is the second year in a row the University has won this category, in 2014 final-year Arts student Louisa Brophy Browne, presented with the George Berkeley Gold Medal. Louisa was given the award for her winning paper Discuss and Evaluate the Main Points of the Debate on the Ethics of Archaeological Work in War Zones and Occupied Territories Using Case Studies in the Classical Studies and Archaeology Category. A further 10 NUI Galway students were also Highly Commended.

The world’s only pan-discipline academic awards programme, the Undergraduate Awards recognises and rewards innovative young thinkers across 25 disciplines. Judged by a panel of academics and industry experts from each field, 120 winners were selected from almost 5,000 submissions from 200 colleges and universities across the world.

Throughout the year, NUI Galway students garnered numerous awards and recognition for their talents. Some recognised included Mahmoud Abukhadir, a final-year Law student at NUI Galway awarded the prestigious Thomas Addis Emmet Fellowship 2015, which is supported by the Free Legal Advice Centres in conjunction with the University of Washington, Seattle.

Dr Girum Azmach from Ethiopia, Dr Mercy Kitavi from Kenya, and Dr Gezahegn Tessema from Ethiopia, became the first to graduate from the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture- NUI Galway PhD Scholars programme.

Faith Amanya, an Irish Aid scholar in the Global Women’s Studies Masters programme, was invited to meet with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon during his visit to the UN Training School Ireland in the Curragh