Alumni engagement and philanthropy



international cryptography expert appointed ACTING DIRECTOR OF ECIT  

27 August 2019

Professor Máire O’Neill has been appointed to the post of Acting Director of ECIT, the Institute of Electronics, Communications and Information Technology at Queen’s University.

Currently Professor of Information Security in the School of Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Queen's, Máire O’Neill is Principal Investigator at the Centre for Secure Information Technologies (CSIT) at the University and Director of the UK Research Institute in Secure Hardware and Embedded Systems (RISE) at CSIT.

One of the University’s key Global Research Institutes (GRIs), ECIT was launched in 2004, employs 250 people, and has facilitated 35 start-up and 10 spin-out companies.

While still a PhD student working with Queen’s spin-out Amphion Semiconductor, Máire’s research was exploited commercially when some of her first electronic designs were sold to a leading US semiconductor manufacturer for use in set-top boxes. By 2011, the device had been incorporated in more than 100 million digital TV decoders worldwide.

A former UK Female Inventor of the Year (2007) when she was acknowledged for her work on high speed data security, Professor O’Neill is now regarded as one of Europe’s leading cryptography experts.

At the age of 32 she was the youngest engineering professor in Queen's University history, and in 2015 was the youngest ever Irish Academy of Engineering fellow.

Professor O’Neill will provide leadership for an ambitious research agenda as ECIT cements Northern Ireland as a global lead in cyber security, while also leading the team through the upcoming GRI review and informing the evolution of the ECIT model.

Earlier this year (May 2019) she was appointed to the UK’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) Council, an independent body set up to improve the understanding of AI and to encourage diversity across the sector.

CSIT works closely with experienced engineers who help in the commercialisation of research through the development of proof-of-concept designs and product prototypes that meet industry requirements. CSIT is one of the only UK university groups specialising in cryptographic algorithms and architectures for system-on-chip and is now regarded as European leaders in this field.

Born Máire McLoone in Glenties, County Donegal, she has lived in Belfast since she was a teenager, studying maths, physics and technology at high school and then electronic engineering at Queen's. Following graduation Master’s of Engineering in 1999, she earned her PhD in 2002, and was awarded a Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellowship the following year. Other career accolades and highlights include:

  • Research Fellowship, Royal Academy of Engineering (2003-08)
  • Vodafone Award at Britain's Younger Engineers Event (2004)
  • Women's Engineering Society prize at the IET Young Woman Engineer of the Year (2006)
  • British Female Inventors & Innovators Network Female Inventor of the Year (2007)
  • European Union Women Inventors & Innovators Innovator of the Year (2007)
  • Leadership Fellowship from EPSRC, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (2008)
  • Royal Academy of Engineering Silver Medal (2014)
  • Appointed Member of the Royal Irish Academy (2017)
  • Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists (2019)
  • Delivered a TEDx talk on the future of internet of things security at Queen's (2019)

Married to Shane, an electronic engineer, they have three children - Aodhan (nine), Niamh (six), and Eoin (two). Máire's two brothers are both electronic engineers and her two sisters are medical doctors.

To submit graduate news items, or for general enquiries about this story, please contact Gerry Power, Communications Officer, Development and Alumni Relations Office, Queen's University Belfast or telephone: +44 (0)28 9097 5321.

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