Mary McCarthy-Buckley was the Manager at the Food Industry Training Unit (FITU), School of Food and Nutritional Sciences, UCC from it's very beginning in 1993 until her retirement in 2022.  Mary managed continuing professional development and training activities in FITU. Mary was also Administrator at the Faculty of Food Science and Technology, UCC, 1993-2000 and had many years management experience in UCC.  She was a Board Member of the Irish Co-operative Organisation Society (ICOS) Plunkett Institute and a Member of the Steering Group of Taste 4 Success Skillnet. Prior to UCC, Mary worked in the National Board for Science and Technology, BioResearch Ireland and FOSS Denmark.

Kathy worked on the Diploma in Manufacturing Management programme, until she moved on to develop her own business in 2022. She had facilitated courses with various key agents in the food and business industry sectors, working with production teams, undergraduate, post-doctoral students and industry management for many years. Her signature focus was team facilitation and communication skills development. Kathy delivered a hands-on approach to learning through the experiential focus of her workshop facilitation. Her previous clients include: Teagasc, EMC, Cork Institute of Technology, ICOS, Sea Fisheries Protection Authority, UCC.

Joanne took on the role of Manager of FITU in 2022 when Mary retired, but has now left to take up a new role outside of UCC.

Joanne’s passion is in people development and supporting success amongst educators, professionals and the food industry though talent.

Joanne specialises in Training and Development in higher education and has devoted the last 15 years to supporting Human Capital development for early career professionals. This was recently recognised with the award of Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personal Development. She has contributed to national policy on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion and her programmes have won training and development awards at the national level.

Joanne has a particular interest in learning and teaching excellence, including developing learning outcomes, assessment methods, course design, accreditation and eLearning components based on competency models. A common theme in Joanne’s work is moving professionals beyond their core subject matter expertise to recognise the depth and breadth of their expertise so that this can be applied in a range of applied areas.

Maura Conway retired from FITU at the end of June 2023.

Maura Conway managed the Diploma in Food Science and Technology in the Food Industry Training Unit since 1993 and had also been involved in the development and management of other Certificate and Diploma Programmes over the years in Meat Technology and Seafood Technology. Prior to joining FITU, Maura held positions in research and development with the Leatherhead Food Research Association and Kerry Group.