Executive Management Committee

Prof. Sarah Gleeson

Centre Director

Professor Sarah A. Gleeson is Director of iCRAG, Research Ireland Professor at University College Dublin, and Full Professor in Sustainability Geoscience at the UCD School of Earth Sciences. Sarah has built globally recognised research programmes in Economic Geology, has published 104 peer reviewed journal and conference papers, and has won several prestigious awards. This includes the Lindgren Award from the Society of Economic Geologists and several prominent lecture tours (e.g., Society of Economic Geologists’ Thayer Lindsley Travelling Lecturer in 2019, Distinguished Lecturer of the European Association of Geochemistry 2024-2025). In 2023, Prof. Gleeson was elected to the membership of Academia Europaea, an organisation which promotes European research, advises governments and international organisations in scientific matters. Throughout her career the main focus of her research has been on the genesis and detection of base metal mineral deposits in sedimentary basins. She has carr

Prof. Murray W. Hitzman

Co-Principal Investigator

Murray W. Hitzman is Director of iCRAG and a Science Foundation Ireland Research Professor. Murray has B.A. degrees in geology and anthropology from Dartmouth College (1976), an M.S. in geology from University of Washington (1978), and a Ph.D. in geology from Stanford University (1983). He worked in the petroleum and minerals industries from 1976 to 1993 primarily doing mineral exploration worldwide and was largely responsible for Chevron Corporationʼs Lisheen Zn- Pb-Ag deposit discovery in Ireland (1990). Dr. Hitzman served in Washington, D.C. as a policy analyst in both the U.S. Senate for Senator Joseph Lieberman (1993-94) and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (1994-96). In 1996 he was named the Fogarty Professor in Economic Geology at the Colorado School of Mines (CSM) and served as head of the Department of Geology and Geological Engineering from 2002-07.

Prof. David Chew

Deputy Director

David Chew is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Geology, Trinity College Dublin and iCRAG Deputy Director. He studied geology at University College Dublin, obtaining his B.Sc. in 1996 and his Ph.D. in 2001. From 2003 – 2005 he was a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Geneva. He returned to Trinity College Dublin in late 2005 to take up a lectureship. He lectures in the field of structural geology and tectonics, while his research interests involve applying geochronology and thermochronology to a variety of problems in the geosciences. He has projects in the hydrocarbons spoke on the thermal history of Ireland and its offshore basins and in sedimentary provenance analysis.

Dr Audrey Morley

Deputy Director

My central research objective is to assess past changes in large-scale ocean-atmosphere climate dynamics during past warm climates to improve our understanding of future climate change. Specifically, I focus on the response of the North Atlantic Ocean and its role in controlling, propagating, and amplifying gradual climate forcings into abrupt climate change. I'm particularly interested in determining exactly how changes in atmospheric circulation patterns control the strength (temperature, salinity) of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) and the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) on multidecadal to millennial timescales during the Quaternary.

Prof. Chris Bean

Co-Principal Investigator

Prof. Chris Bean leads iCRAG’s geophysics research. His research area covers various aspects of seismology, with a focus on volcano processes and imagery in highly heterogeneous structures. Following completion of his PhD at the Dublin Institute for Advanced studies, Chris joined the UCD School of Geological Sciences in 1989. In 1993 he established the Geophysics Group and became coordinator of the BSc (Topical) degree in Geophysical Science in collaboration with the School of Physics.

Dr Aoife Brady

COO

Aoife is the iCRAG Centre Manager and is responsible for all management and functions of the Centre. She leads the Operations Team and develops and implements the iCRAG strategy

Aoife graduated with a BSc Hons in Earth Science from the University of Galway in 2006 after which she completed a PhD in carbonatites, kimberlites and lamprophyres also at the University of Galway. Following this, she worked as an exploration geologist for 4.5 years on the Songwe Hill Carbonatite Project with Rare Earth Element (REE) exploration company, Mkango Resources, in southern Malawi, Africa. She then took up the role of Geodata Product Manager at International Geoscience Services (IGS) Ltd., based at the British Geological Survey (BGS) in Nottingham, where she oversaw the company’s new mineral prospectivity software. In 2016 Aoife moved to the Geological Survey Ireland (GSI) where she managed, Tellus, the GSI’s national ground and airborne data acquisition programme.

Prof. Laurence Gill

Co-Principal Investigator

Prof. Gill is lead of iCRAG’s Connected Waters research. His research interests involve studying the fate and transport of both air and water-borne pollutants in the natural and built environment, as well as the development of passive treatment processes. Much of the work involves extensive field studies which are then used to develop mathematical models to gain further insight into the processes. Prior to joining at Trinity College in 1999, he spent several years working in the UK water industry on the design of water and wastewater treatment processes for urban populations.

Prof. John Walsh

Co-Principal Investigator

Prof. Walsh is a Co-Principal Investigator with a research focus on the geometry and growth of faults, and on the impacts of faults and fractures on fluid flow. John is Professor of Structural Geology at UCD and co-director of the Fault Analysis Group in the School of Earth Sciences. He has published numerous papers in peer-reviewed journals, served on the editorial boards of five journals, including Geology and the Journal of Structural Geology, and acted as distinguished lecturer for the European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers (EAGE) and the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG). In 2015 John became the first Irish Honorary Fellow of the Geological Society of London.

Dr Fergus McAuliffe

Education, Public Engagement and Communications Manager

Fergus manages all of iCRAG’s communications, education and public engagement activities. He holds a PhD in environmental science from University College Cork. Alongside his research experience, Fergus also has a wide range of experience in science communication, through winning FameLab International in 2013, delivering workshops and conference talks on science communication around Europe, and is currently a presenter on “The Science Squad/10 Things to Know About” on RTE1 television. As part of his role, Fergus works closely with the Public Perception and Understanding of geoscience platform in iCRAG.

Prof. Andrew Wheeler

Co-Principal Investigator

Prof. Wheeler is co-lead of iCRAG’s Geomarine Environment research. Research activities include marine geology with an emphasis on benthic boundary layer sedimentary processes, offshore Quaternary geology and seabed mapping (SSS, MBES, ROVs). Prof. Wheeler has a special focus on the geology of deep-water coral carbonate mounds and continental margins (slides, canyons, contourites) as well as shelf-sea sediment transport processes and offshore.

Dr Shane Tyrrell

Co-Principal Investigator

Dr Shane Tyrrell is a Co-Principal Investigator leading research in iCRAG's Energy Transition TPs of the Earth Resources Challenge. Working closely with the Geochemistry platform within the hub, his research is focussed in the area of sedimentary provenance, particularly 1) developing and testing new proxies for tracking sediment from “source to sink”; and 2) applying these techniques to solving economically relevant geological problems (e.g. links between sand sourcing, reservoir sandstone distribution and quality). Shane has been involved in diverse projects, from investigating large continental-scale rivers, through typing sources of ice rafted debris offshore Antarctica, to palaeodrainage reconstruction for basins offshore Ireland.

Prof. Geertje Schuitema

Co-Principal Investigator

Geertje completed her PhD in Environmental Psychology from the University of Groningen (the Netherlands). Before joining UCD in 2014, she was a Research Fellow at the University of Aberdeen (UK, 2009 – 2011) and Aarhus University (Denmark, 2011 – 2014). Her research focuses on factors that explain (sustainable) consumer behaviour, including the adoption of new technologies and the public perception of environmental issues and risks. Moreover, I study how people can be encouraged to behave more sustainably, building mainly on psychological and marketing theories.

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Executive Management Committee

Prof. Sarah Gleeson

Centre Director

Prof. Murray W. Hitzman

Co-Principal Investigator

Prof. David Chew

Deputy Director

Dr Audrey Morley

Deputy Director

Prof. Chris Bean

Co-Principal Investigator

Dr Aoife Brady

COO

Prof. Laurence Gill

Co-Principal Investigator

Prof. John Walsh

Co-Principal Investigator

Dr Fergus McAuliffe

Education, Public Engagement and Communications Manager

Prof. Andrew Wheeler

Co-Principal Investigator

Dr Shane Tyrrell

Co-Principal Investigator

Prof. Geertje Schuitema

Co-Principal Investigator