Two UL Lecturers Amongst 2025 Fulbright Awardees

Dr Niamh O’Brien, Irish World Academy of Music and Dance and Dr Carmel Hinchion Emeritus Associate Professor of Education at UL have are among the many 18 Fulbright Irish Awardees for 2025-2026 introduced by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Department of Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht, and the Embassy of the United States of America in Dublin. 

From August 2025 to August 2026, Fulbright Irish Scholars, Students and Professionals will attend establishments starting from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Georgia Institute of Technology, and the University of Kansas to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Maxine Greene Institute, and the University of Colorado Boulder. Awardees will analysis, innovate and collaborate throughout a various vary of fields together with multimedia arts, philosophy, medication, agriculture, training, artwork historical past, AI expertise in medication, AI expertise in training, visible arts, and well being.

Dr Niamh O’Brien is a harp participant, singer, composer and sound artist. She has carried out in Ireland and overseas as a solo artist, and with conventional teams equivalent to The Chieftains, AnTara and Hoodman Blind. Since 2017 she has been energetic in audio and radio, working as a recordist, editor and producer on podcast and documentary initiatives. She was awarded a PhD by University of Limerick in 2024 for her analysis in within the area of sonic arts and deep mapping. Her present compositional observe combines conventional, folks anfjulied digital music, with voices, interview supplies and area recordings. Her analysis and inventive initiatives have been supported by the Irish Research Council, Music Network and the Arts Council of Ireland. As a Fulbright-Creative Ireland Professional Fellowship Scholar, Niamh will discover the work of Irish folklore and conventional music collectors by way of the lens of media principle and hands-on inventive analysis at University of Colorado Boulder. Through analysis and inventive observe Niamh will carry the discourse of experimental media archaeology into dialog with Irish cultural historical past and ask how explicit media ecologies or assemblages produce articulations of tradition, authenticity and custom.  

Dr Carmel Hinchion is an skilled instructor, instructor educator and researcher. She holds a doctorate in Teacher Education and is an Associate Professor of Education (Emeritus) at University of Limerick. She taught on the Initial Teacher Education programmes at undergraduate and postgraduate degree and for a few years has been concerned in curriculum improvement in Ireland, particularly within the space of English Pedagogy. The energy of the humanities in training has been central in Carmel’s educating and analysis work. Carmel’s Fulbright-Creative Ireland Professional Fellowship Award will facilitate an arts and training venture with the Maxine Greene Institute, New York, the place she is going to analysis the philosophy and practices of the late thinker and educationalist Maxine Greene with these educators who keep on her legacy on the Institute. Carmel will significantly concentrate on approaches to imaginative studying within the classroom and aesthetic approaches in training. She plans to disseminate her studying with fellow academics and researchers on her return to Ireland.  

Founded in 1946, the Fulbright bilateral trade programme has served to strengthen worldwide relations by facilitating educational and cultural exchanges globally for over 79 years. The Fulbright Program in Ireland has awarded grants to greater than 2,500 Irish and American residents since 1957, contributing to enduring Ireland-U.S. relations and a worldwide tradition of understanding.

Fulbright alumni embrace 44 present or former heads of state, 62 Nobel Laureates, 90 Pulitzer Prize-winners, and 82 MacArthur Foundation Fellows. Each yr, gifted and noteworthy candidates from throughout Ireland are chosen to analysis, examine and educate with main consultants at high establishments throughout the U.S. in disciplines starting from enterprise, regulation, well being and expertise to tradition, heritage, the humanities, and the Irish language.