Sustainable Futures Forum

Mrs Mary Robinson

Mary Robinson is Adjunct Professor for Climate Justice in Trinity College Dublin and Chair of The Elders.  She served as President of Ireland from 1990-1997 and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997-2002. She is a member of the Club of Madrid and the recipient of numerous honours and awards including the Presidential Medal of Freedom from the President of the United States Barack Obama. Between 2013 and 2016 Mary served as the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy in three roles; first for the Great Lakes region of Africa, then on Climate Change leading up to the Paris Agreement and in 2016 as his Special Envoy on El Niño and Climate. Her Foundation, the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice, established in 2010, came to a planned end in April 2019.

A former President of the International Commission of Jurists and former chair of the Council of Women World Leaders she was President and founder of Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative from 2002-2010 and served as Honorary President of Oxfam International from 2002-2012. She was Chancellor of the University of Dublin from 1998 to 2019. 

Mary Robinson serves as Patron of the International Science Council and Patron of the Board of the Institute of Human Rights and Business, is an Ambassador for The B Team, in addition to being a board member of several organisations including the Mo Ibrahim Foundation and the Aurora Foundation. Recently she became joint Honorary President of the Africa Europe Foundation. Mary’s memoir, ‘Everybody Matters’ was published in September 2012 and her book, ‘Climate Justice - Hope, Resilience and the Fight for a Sustainable Future’ was published in September 2018. She is also co-host of a podcast on the climate crisis, called ‘Mothers of Invention’.

Dr Julie Newman

Julie joined MIT as the Institute’s first Director of Sustainability to found the Office of Sustainability and build a platform both unique to MIT yet with the intention of advancing the field at large.  With this in mind, Julie launched MIT’s sustainability platform grounded in a methodology to leverage the role of the campus to solve for sustainability and a changing climate across multiple scales - at the levels of the individual, the campus, the city, the state, the country and the globe.

Julie is a pioneer in the field of campus sustainability and has worked for twenty-five years at a combination of public and private, and rural and urban campuses alike. In her work she has demonstrated that the actions and infrastructure of our campuses are integral to advancing and fulfilling the educational mission of Higher Education.  She brings a systems thinking perspective to all of her work and seeks to build bridges between operational and academic partners alike to inform both her understanding of the challenges at hand and to develop solutions.  Her prior research which she now applies, focused on the intersection between decision-making processes and organizational behavior in institutionalizing sustainability into higher education.

Prior to MIT, Julie was the founding Director of the Office of Sustainability for Yale University where she also held a lecturer appointment with the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.  Julie came to Yale from the University of New Hampshire, Office of Sustainability Programs (OSP) where she assisted with the development of the program since its inception.  As the field of campus sustainability took route, Julie was determined to bring the northeast pioneers together with the understanding that as colleagues we do our best work when we challenge each other’s thinking. With this in mind,  Julie co-founded the Northeast Campus Sustainability Consortium, to advance education and action for sustainable development on university campuses in the northeast and maritime region.  

Julie is also a Lecturer in MIT's Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP) at MIT. She lectures and consults for universities both nationally and internationally, participates on a variety of boards and advisory committees and has contributed to a series of edited books and peer reviewed journals. Julie holds a BS in Natural Resource Policy and Management from the University of Michigan; an MS in Environmental Policy and Biology from Tufts University; and a Ph.D. in Natural Resources and Environmental Studies from the University of New Hampshire.

Vivienne has a degree in Zoology from UCC and a master’s in biotechnology and Doctorate of Science from DCU.

In 2006 she joined the team at the Higher Education Authority as Head of Statistics where she led the Statistics Unit for 10 years. During that time Vivienne was responsible for transforming the communication of education data publishing a number of key reports.

Since becoming Head of Skills, Engagement and Statistics in 2016, her responsibilities include the management of both Springboard+, a national upskilling and reskilling programme and the oversight of national apprenticeships in higher education. In 2019, she implemented the Human Capital Initiative, a €300m investment in Agility and Innovation across the Irish Higher Education System. Vivienne led the establishment of the National Apprenticeship Office for the HEA in 2020. Her role in the HEA involves active strategic engagement with enterprise to strengthen the relationship between higher education promotion and future employment and innovation. She is a member of the CAO Board of Directors, the Expert Group on Future Skills Needs, the National Skills Council and the National Training Fund Advisory Group.

Dr Marguerite Nyhan is an Associate Professor/Senior Lecturer in Sustainable Futures & Environmental Engineering at University College Cork and Research Affiliate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr Nyhan leads Sustainable Futures at UCC which is a nationally coordinated sustainability education initiative which has been funded to the value of €5.3 million by the Higher Education Authority. As part of this, she Chairs the Sustainable Futures Forum, founded the Sustainable Futures Lab at UCC and directs multiple post-graduate programmes.  

Marguerite has world-leading international research experience from her work at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University in Boston as well as at the United Nations in New York. Dr Nyhan’s research group harnesses new and emerging technologies for developing intelligent solutions for sustainable, net zero, healthy, liveable and equitable cities. Marguerite is a prolific scholar and has interdisciplinary expertise in sustainable cities, urban environmental engineering, emissions modelling, urban analytics, population exposure modelling and environmental epidemiological modelling methods. She has led several largescale research projects in the areas of climate and sustainability that have been funded by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) and government agencies. Marguerite has a PhD from Trinity College Dublin and was a Fulbright Scholar at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

Kevin O’Sullivan is Environment & Science Editor with The Irish Times. He served as Editor of The Irish Times from 2011 to 2017.  He joined The Irish Times in 1997 as Environmental and Food Science Correspondent. In his current role, he has responsibility for coverage of climate change, renewable energy and sustainability issues including the UN Sustainable Development Goals. He has attended UN COPs every year since 2017. He is co-author of the recently published book Supergrid Super Solution, the case for a supergrid in Europe, with renewable energy developer Eddie O'Connor.

Miriam O'Callaghan

Miriam O’Callaghan is one of Ireland’s most well-known and respected presenters in television and radio. A winner of many awards for her work including IFTAs, Celtic Media Torcs and Justice Media Awards, Miriam works today primarily as a Broadcast Journalist with RTÉ. 

Born and raised in Dublin, Miriam went to University College Dublin aged just 16 to study Law and qualified as a solicitor. She also holds a post graduate Diploma in European Law from UCD.  

After being interviewed by the BBC as a young lawyer in Dublin, Miriam got the urge to change career and to go into broadcasting. Her first job was in UK television working as a researcher on ITV's This is your Life.  In 1987, she joined the BBC as a BBC producer working on shows such as Kilroy and Family Matters. In 1989 she was headhunted by BBC Newsnight and became a reporter on that programme for almost 10 years. 

In 1996, Miriam began to present RTÉ's current affairs flagship programme Prime Time, while continuing to cover the Northern Irish peace process for Newsnight. In August 2000, Miriam co-founded Mint Productions, an independent production company that specialised in documentary with her husband Steve Carson, who is currently the Director General of BBC Scotland. Mint won many awards for its documentaries including for landmark series such as Haughey, Bertie and Our Lady’s. 

Miriam anchored RTE’s coverage of the 25^th Anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland and also President Biden’s recent his visit to Mayo. 

Miriam is also particularly proud of one moment in her career when she helped to win the accolade ‘Ireland’s Greatest’ for the incredible peacemaker John Hume by making a documentary for RTÉ on John and championing him in a public vote. 

Miriam also presents her own radio show on RTE Radio 1, Sunday with Miriam, which is one of the Top Ten of Ireland’s most listened to radio shows. Sunday with Miriam has also won a PPI award for best Speech Driven Magazine Show. For fourteen years, Miriam also presented the RTÉ television summer chat show Saturday Night with Miriam. 

Miriam is a patron of many charities including Ireland’s only children’s Hospice for children Laura Lynn, Carers Ireland, Cliona’s Foundation and The NMH Foundation. Miriam also supports many other charitable causes throughout the year. 

Robert O’Mahony leads an international, multi-disciplinary team as Head of Sustainability, Global Operations for Logitech. In his role, Robert is responsible for driving Logitech’s sustainability commitments and progress across its worldwide operations, products, and supply chains. He is also responsible for building strong business relationships and partnerships that strategically advance sustainability within the company.

During his nearly two decades at Logitech, Robert has held various positions in sustainability, operations and corporate workplace services that focus on reducing the company’s environmental footprint, delivering circular solutions, and advancing nature-based restorative investments to support climate-impacted ecosystems and communities. Robert is a strong advocate for a science-based approach to sustainability transformation and guides his teams to deliver on Logitech’s broader vision through its Design for Sustainability capabilities. 

Robert grew up in a rural part of Ireland where he developed a deep connection to the outdoors and our natural world. Robert is based in Logitech’s Cork, Ireland office.