Professor Deirdre Ahern

Professor Ahern is professor in law and director of the technologies, law and society research group at Trinity College Dublin School of Law.

She is also a collaborator in the ADAPT Centre and a Fellow of the Information Society Law Centre at the University of Milan.

Professor Ahern has particular expertise around ethics, policy and regulation for new technologies including AI and quantum technologies and regularly works across disciplines including with physicists, computer scientists and ethicists.

Her sustained body of work on regulatory sandboxes for regulators and innovators as a two-way learning tool has shaped the field and been used to brief the European Parliament.

A key strand of Professor Ahern’s research agenda engages with anticipatory governance tools that can be used by states to engage with, learn from and respond to early stage science and technology developments including strategic foresight activities, policy labs and mission-based challenges.

Already advising government as a member of Ireland’s AI Advisory Council, she brings a wealth of policy and advisory experience to the table.

As a member of the Royal Irish Academy’s ethical, political, legal and philosophical studies committee, she has led out on public discourse around governing AI.

Professor Ahern is leading multidisciplinary research work focused on the emerging significance of quantum technologies and is a member of Europol’s Quantum Safe Financial Forum.

An advisor to the European Commission on its work programme, she has previously worked in the private sector as a lawyer and as a principal officer in the Law Reform Commission.

The appointment of the inaugural members of the National Science Advice Forum follows the appointment last year of Professor Aoife McLysaght as government science advisor as part of the government’s plan to develop new science advice structures.

James Lawless, minister for further and higher education, research, innovation and science, said: “I am delighted to appoint the first members of the National Science Advice Forum. The level of interest, and the calibre of those interested, was exceptionally high.

“I look forward to the contribution of the Forum in the period ahead.”