Image: © Antonio Rodriguez/Stock.adobe.com
On International Women’s Day, the SiliconRepublic.com team has put together a list of inspiring women. From work in cancer research and robotics to climate policy and ethical AI, these researchers and entrepreneurs are taking the lead against the odds and for society.
International Women’s Day (IWD), a day to recognise women’s achievements and a call to action to stand up for women’s rights and gender equality, traces its origins to a National Women’s Day held in the US in 1909. This early initiative was led by socialist organisations who campaigned for better working conditions, the right to vote and equality for women.
Nowadays IWD is celebrated in many countries around the world in recognition of the strides that have been made towards equality, but it also serves as an annual reminder of the work still to be done. Gender-based violence is a major issue, with one-third of women globally having experienced physical and/or sexual violence committed by their partner. Trans women and sex workers are particularly vulnerable to all forms of violence.
Women have varying sexual and reproductive rights, with stigma attached to contraception, menstruation and abortion in many parts of the world.
There is also the gender pay gap. Women in the EU on average earn 13pc less than men. According to Amnesty International, this figure is closer to 23pc globally.
This year’s IWD theme is Inspire Inclusion, with the aim of emphasising the importance of diversity and empowerment in all aspects of society. In this spirit, the whole team here at SiliconRepublic.com have worked together to compile a list of inspiring women in STEM to highlight the work they do, many in male-dominated fields.
On IWD 2013, our CEO Ann O’Dea launched Women Invent Tomorrow, a year-long campaign to champion the roles of women in STEM. In the decade that followed, Women Invent has become a regular series throughout the year here at SiliconRepublic.com and ensures that for us gender equality is not just for the 8 March but for everyday always.
Path breakers in emerging tech
Sabrina Maniscalco
A professor of quantum information, computing and logic at the University of Helsinki, Prof Sabrina Maniscalco has been working on quantum technology for more than 20 years.
She is the co-founder and CEO of quantum computing start-up Algorithmiq, a start-up with an Irish subsidiary that aims to use quantum computers in drug development.
Maniscalco has made significant contributions to the field, particularly in understanding noise in quantum devices, complex quantum systems and quantum simulations. Her company is one of several organisations that have been working with Trinity College Dublin (TCD) to form the Trinity Quantum Alliance.
Virginia Dignum
Prof Virginia Dignum is one of the leading figures in the field of responsible artificial intelligence. She is currently a professor in responsible AI and the director of the AI Policy Lab at Umeå University in Sweden.
Previously, she was a member of the European Commission high-level expert group and the IEEE global initiative on ethically aligned design of autonomous and intelligent systems. She is currently a member of the World Economic Forum Global AI Council and the UN advisory body on AI. Recently, she featured on the Future Human podcast to talk about the future of AI.
Patricia Scanlon
Dr Patricia Scanlon is the founder of SoapBox Labs, a company that develops accurate and secure voice technology for children.
Having created the company in 2013 based on her own research into speech technology, Scanlon is a passionate advocate for ethical AI and baking this into AI products from the get-go. SoapBox Labs was acquired by US edtech company Curriculum Associates in November 2023.
In 2021, she was appointed as Ireland’s first AI ambassador to demystify AI and promote its positive impacts on Ireland’s future by leading a national conversation around the role of AI in our lives.
Susan Leavy
Earlier this year, Dr Susan Leavy was one of several AI academics and trailblazers appointed to Ireland’s AI Advisory Council. An assistant professor in University College Dublin’s School of Information and Communications Studies, Leavy’s interests span multiple disciplines.
She works on trustworthy AI projects and lectures on AI ethics, cultural analytics and natural language processing. She feels strongly about mitigating bias in AI, particularly gender bias.
Lollie Mancey
Dr Lollie Mancey is programme director of University College Dublin’s Innovation Academy. With a PhD in organisational learning, Mancey describes herself as an anthropologist and AI ethicist who takes a human-centred approach to a changing technological and cultural landscape.
She is also a serial entrepreneur as director of three businesses and she hosts a radio show on Dublin South FM.
Niamh Donnelly
Niamh Donnelly is the co-founder and chief robotics officer of Dublin start-up Akara Robotics.
Akara Robotics is the creator of Stevie, a social care robot designed to be an assistant in elder care facilities, along with another robot equipped with ultraviolet technology designed to eliminate bacteria and viruses to make disinfecting hospitals safer and faster.
In December 2022, Donnelly was among the winners of the EU Prize for Women Innovators. In 2023, she also won the Irish Tatler Women of the Year STEM Award.
Keen on green
Yvonne Buckley
Prof Yvonne Buckley is a professor of zoology at Trinity College Dublin. As she herself puts it, she uses “ecology to solve environmental problems”.
Her work focuses on biodiversity, invasive species management and improving how people interact with nature. She is at the forefront of developing the field of ecoinformatics, which is the bringing together of computer science, ecology and environmental science research.
She is co-chair of the All-Island Climate and Biodiversity Research Network and senior editor of the Journal of Ecology. She was a founding member of the Irish Ecological Association. In 2021, she was named the IRC Researcher of the Year.
Elke Arendt
Prof Elke Arendt has worked at University College Cork’s School of Food and Nutritional Sciences for more than 30 years. Her expertise centres on one of the most fundamental things of all: food.
Her academic interests include gluten-free nutrition, antimicrobial agents, starter cultures, brewing and malting, rheology and food structure. Her prodigious research has appeared on the global Highly Cited Researchers List, ranking her work in the top 1pc of citations in her field.
Cara Augustenborg
Dr Cara Augustenborg is an assistant professor in Landscape Studies and Environmental Policy at University College Dublin. She serves as a member of Ireland’s Climate Change Advisory Council, is a member of President Michael D Higgins’ Council of State and is on the advisory committee for Teagasc’s flagship agri-environmental programme, Signpost. Augustenborg also hosts the Down to Earth radio show on Newstalk.
She is passionate about the climate and a low-carbon transition, which she campaigns for through her environmental policy and advocacy work.
Rooted in STEM
Niamh Shaw
Dr Niamh Shaw is a well-known Irish engineer, scientist and science communicator, who was named a ‘champion’ by the European Space Agency in 2022 for her role in communicating about space. She was one of only 15 people to get this commendation.
Shaw engages audiences with insights into her amazing scientific journeys, such as witnessing a rocket launch in Kazakhstan and taking a research voyage to Antarctica. Shaw is also involved in outreach work and was honorary ambassador for the Irish Girl Guides between 2019 and 2020. She was guest speaker at the launch of the group’s space programme in 2020.
Fiona Boyle
With a PhD in microbiology, Dr Fiona Boyle worked in the medtech and pharma sectors for a number of years.
These days, she leads Munster Technological University’s pioneering Rethinking Engineering Education in Ireland (REEDI) programme, which brings together a consortium of national and international higher education institutions, industry stakeholders and research centres. The REEDI programme runs an engineering degree that includes paid placements with industry leaders.
A member of the Institute of Engineers Ireland, Boyle is a strong advocate for engineering education in Ireland and making the career accessible for all.
Oluchi Anyabuike
Oluchi Anyabuike is a senior software engineer at Fidelity Investments with no shortage of accomplishments. A former participant of Fidelity’s Leap graduate programme, Anyabuike has been on the winning teams of Fidelity’s Women in Technology Special Interest Group WIT-A-THON for three consecutive years, and has been a leading voice on the subject of diversity and inclusion.
Anyabuike is a founding member of Aspire Ireland, Fidelity’s employee resource group for Black and Latinx associates, and has worked on various D&I projects, such as leading a team in developing an inclusive language browser extension to promote the use of inclusive language. Her extensive work in D&I was recently recognised at the Diversity in Tech Awards 2023, where Anyabuike received the Rising Star award.
Jocelyn Bell Burnell
Jocelyn Bell Burnell is an astrophysicist most recognised for her work on the discovery of pulsars, one of the major astronomical discoveries of the 20th century. Despite her central role in the discovery, she was not recognised officially at the time, with the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physics being awarded to her PhD supervisor instead.
However, Bell Burnell has since been recognised for her work, receiving many awards and accolades including the prestigious Copley Medal and an Irish diaspora award. Over the course of her career, Bell Burnell has proven to be both a pioneer in modern astrophysics as well as an inspiring voice on the topic of sexism in academia.
Eilish McLoughlin
Dr Eilish McLoughlin is an associate professor and head of the School of Physical Sciences at Dublin City University, where she has worked for nearly 30 years. She is a founding member of DCU’s Research Centre for the Advancement of STEM Teaching and Learning (CASTeL) and served as centre director from 2008-2021.
She is a passionate advocate for science education and has led several national programmes aimed at supporting teachers to teach STEM subjects. She has developed tools for addressing unconscious bias and building resilience in physics.
Anne L’Huillier
Prof Anne L’Huillier is a French physicist who, along with Pierre Agostini and Ferenc Krausz, was awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physics for her research into electrons. A professor of physics at Lund University in Sweden, L’Huillier was recognised for an experiment she conducted in 1987.
During this experiment, she discovered that many different overtones of light arise when infrared laser light is transmitted through a noble gas, resulting from the laser light interacting with atoms in the gas. Her continuous exploration of this phenomenon lay the groundwork for subsequent breakthroughs in electron research.
Your health is your wealth
Nicole Baker
Baker is the co-founder of Biologit, a start-up that helps companies automate the monitoring of scientific literature. An immunologist by background, she started the company with tech expert Bruno Ohana. Her experience working in biotech and pharma helped Biologit leverage AI to help keep patients safe by simplifying the detection of adverse events from drug development to post-market.
“I have always been interested in science, but also in how to best use technology to help with new discoveries and in our day-to-day activities,” Baker told Siliconrepublic.com in a 2021 interview.
Rose Anne Kenny
Regius Rose Anne Kenny is the founding principal investigator of a massive study on the experience of ageing in Ireland. Kenny holds the chair of Medical Gerontology at Trinity College Dublin and is the director of a clinical-research institute for ageing at St James’s Hospital Dublin – the Mercer’s Institute for Successful Ageing.
In June 2022, Kenny was the first women to be appointed Regius Professor of Physic at Trinity. This is the oldest professorship in Ireland and one of the oldest medical professorships in Europe.
Barbara Oliveira
Dr Barbara Oliveira’s is a name you’ll be hearing more about for sure. She was recently nominated for an EIT award for her role as chief clinical officer with Galway-based medtech start-up Luminate Medical.
Luminate is working on a device to prevent hair loss during chemotherapy. It is a spin-out of University of Galway, where Oliveira undertook a PhD in breast cancer diagnosis using machine learning and microwave imaging.
Aviva Cohen
An award-winning entrepreneur who was once a philosophy lecturer, Dr Aviva Cohen is the co-founder of health-tech start-up SeamlessCare. The University College Dublin spin-out is focused on enhancing communication and support for people with autism, acquired brain injury and dementia.
Cohen started SeamlessCare with Ian Kennedy and Dr Çağrı Çubukçu. It was among 11 research-based high-potential start-ups backed by Enterprise Ireland in 2021.
Sharon Glynn
Prof Sharon Glynn is a professor in pathology at University of Galway. She is a Fulbright Scholar and Science Foundation Ireland Career Development Award holder.
For the last 15 years, Glynn’s research has focused on Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC), a particularly aggressive form of cancer that affects up to 15pc of women diagnosed with breast cancer. She recently won Horizon Europe research funding to lead an international project to develop innovative therapies targeting TNBC.
To date, she has authored 55 papers in peer-reviewed journals and has been awarded grants from the Irish Cancer Society, Breast Cancer Now and Science Foundation Ireland.
Alison Darcy
Dr Alison Darcy is a psychologist and health-tech designer, who has more than 25 years’ experience focused on improving healthcare delivery.
In 2017, she founded WoeBot Labs, which has created a platform to provide easily accessible, chat-based mental health support. This platform provides an AI-powered digital companion to support its users. The company claims to have reached roughly 1.5m users worldwide.
JoAnne E Manson
Dr JoAnne E Manson has had an impressive career, working as a Harvard professor, an endocrinologist, an epidemiologist and a principal investigator on several research studies.
She is known for providing advice on healthy living, which stems from her research on women and heart disease. Manson has published more than 1,200 articles and is the author or editor of several books and textbooks.
Alison Winger
Dr Alison Winger is general manager of Novozymes in Ireland and global head of product development at Novozymes OneHealth, which operates in Ireland under the brand PrecisionBiotics.
PrecisionBiotics works closely with University College Cork’s APC Microbiome Institute to develop products to improve gut health.
Winger is a 2024 women in STEM diversity ambassador for Women Mean Business, a platform that supports and celebrates women entrepreneurs.
“Did you know that in Ireland, only one in four of the STEM workforce are female?! We can do better. We MUST do better! The key to shape the best future possible, a healthier population, a healthier planet and healthier business is diversity,” Winger wrote in a LinkedIn post today (8 March) when announcing her ambassador role.
Cristina Purtill
Cristina Purtill is a researcher and entrepreneur who is CEO of medtech Plio Surgical. The Trinity-based start-up is developing a minimally invasive implant for colorectal surgeries that heal fast and avoid any post-surgical complications such as leakage. She is nominated for a European Prize for Women Innovators by the European Innovation Council.
Based in Dublin, Plio was one of four Irish start-ups that participated in the prestigious MedTech Innovator global accelerator in California last year.
Orla Hardiman
Prof Orla Hardiman has a busy career, balancing her time between being head of neurology at Trinity College Dublin and working two days a week as a clinician. She is also a researcher at the SFI research centres FutureNeuro and Adapt, she founded and leads the national ALS clinical and research programme, and she is the HSE national clinical lead for neurology.
Hardiman’s research has transformed how we treat motor neurone disease, a rare condition that progressively damages parts of the nervous system. Last year, Hardiman spoke to Silicon Republic’s Ann O’Dea about her remarkable career.
Ciara Judge
Currently a PhD candidate at the University of London, Ciara Judge has accumulated a number of impressive achievements at a young age. In her secondary school days, Judge was part of the winning team at the 2013 BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition, and went on to win the 2014 Google Science Fair and featured on Time Magazine’s list of most influential teenagers in the same year. She has co-founded three start-ups before she completed her Leaving Cert, and was involved with genetic research into Covid-19 during the height of the pandemic.
She has a BSc in genetics from University College Cork, an MPhil in computational biology from University of Cambridge and is currently pursuing a PhD in infectious disease modelling at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She says her goal in life is to “use science to improve the lives of people worldwide”.
Jacqui O’Connor
Jacqui O’Connor is a biomedical engineer and co-founder of Galway-based MedScan3D, a start-up that aims to improve healthcare with the help of medical 3D printing.
She started the company with James Wall in 2019 (when she was on maternity leave for the second time in two years) with the aim to develop highly accurate, patient-specific anatomical models from various human body scans. The models are targeted towards healthcare professionals such as cardiologists, oncologists and surgeons.
O’Connor is an advocate for not only increasing the number of women in executive levels of business but also in creating more inclusive and flexible workplaces where women can thrive.
Leading the charge
Anne O’Leary
With more than 25 years’ experience in the telecoms industry under her belt, Anne O’Leary continues to be a major figure in the tech world having taken up the mantle of head of Meta Ireland last year.
Before joining the social media company, she worked with Vodafone for more than 14 years, having quickly rose through the ranks to become CEO in 2013.
While at Vodafone, O’Leary led the company’s 2,000 staff in Ireland and oversaw the nationwide roll-out of 4G and 5G. She has also been a strong advocate for inclusivity at the workplace.
Frances Abeton
Frances Abeton is co-founder of Dublin-based clinical trials company Whyze Health. Launched in 2021, the start-up was co-founded by CEO Abeton and Prof Frank Sullivan, one of Ireland’s leading radiation oncologists.
Through Whyze Health, Abeton is trying to digitise clinical trials and improve Ireland’s poor performance compared to other small countries. Abeton sees her leadership role as a “bridge between innovation and impact”.
She is former head of business improvements at O2 Ireland, which launched one of the country’s first mobile services.
Deborah Threadgold
Deborah Threadgold, one of the most recognisable tech business leaders in Ireland, has been country manager of IBM Ireland since early 2021.
Prior to that, she held various positions at IBM, including as vice-president of system integrators and next-gen ecosystem in the EMEA market. All in, Threadgold has more than 25 years working at the tech giant.
In October 2023, she was recognised for her achievements with the overall award at the Women Mean Business Awards.
Find out how emerging tech trends are transforming tomorrow with our new podcast, Future Human: The Series. Listen now on Spotify, on Apple or wherever you get your podcasts.
