DCU Voices

2021 EDITION 31 COLONEL MARK HEARNS MA International Relations, DCU, 2002 Mark has been a leader in field and command roles during three decades of service with the Irish Defence Forces. He is currently its Director of Logistics and Court Martial Administrator. He has also served as Officer Commanding 27 Infantry Battalion, Officer in Charge of Overseas Operations at Defence Forces HQ, and Commandant of the Command and Staff School. He has served in leadership roles on nine overseas peace operations in the Middle East, the Balkans, the former Soviet Union, Central Asia and Africa with the UN, OSCE, European Commission and NATO (PFP). ÁINE KERR Bachelor of Education, St Patrick’s College, 2002 and MA Journalism, DCU, 2005 The COO of Kinzen, a news technology company, Áine Kerr is a renowned journalist and a pioneer in the development of news infrastructure in the digital era. Previously, Áine led global journalism partnerships at Facebook and has also worked with Storyful, the Irish Times , Irish Independent and Irish Examiner . She is a member of the advisory board for the Institute for Future of Media and Journalism (Fujo) in DCU, a co-founder of Online News Association (ONA) Ireland and a Fellow of the Sulzberger Leadership Program in Columbia University. ANGELA OKEMENA UNUFE-KENNEDY BSc Intellectual Disability Nursing, DCU, 2013 Angela founded Migrant and Minority Disability Network Ireland in November 2013. In 2006, through engagement with the European Association of Service Providers, the Migrant and Minority Disability Network Europe was established. She has been involved in the co- authored project, Access to Services for Migrants with Disabilities. This promotes the efficient management and integration of asylum seekers and migrants with disabilities in the EU. Angela has been invited by migrants’ groups in Malta, Spain, Serbia and Holland to talk about how migrants with disabilities can be supported. DR CONOR BURKE BSc Physicswith French, DCU,1999 andPhDPhysics (Research), DCU, 2004 Dr. Conor Burke is theDirector of Innovation andSystems Engineering, Global Device Engineeringat Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals Ireland Ltd. He has over 20 years’ experience in Life Sciences research&development. He receivedan ExecutiveMBA fromtheUCDSmurfit Business School in 2017 and took on his current role in 2019. He is focused on the identification ofmedical device development opportunities and the translation of these into commercial reality. He has also helda series of research &developmentmanagement roles in DCUcentres, including theOptical Sensors Laboratory, the Biomedical Diagnostics Institute and Ireland’s first Fraunhofer Project Centre. ANTHONY BOLTON BA Humanities, DCU, 2007 and MSc Internet Systems, DCU, 2010 (Oscail) Tony is the CIO and CTO for Global Telecommunications, End User Services and Infrastructure in General Motors. He also leads digital strategy in areas such as collaboration, virtual reality, real-time 3D and customer experience. Tony has also held global executive IT positions with Hewlett- Packard, Dell and Price Waterhouse.