The Laidlaw Research and Leadership program has laid the foundations for my career over the past two years. It has been an interesting and rewarding challenge, helping me grow my leadership skills and practice global citizenship and ethics. I have applied principles of ethics and global citizenship throughout both my research and LIA projects while expanding my knowledge further with LEAD sessions.

The summer one research project provided me with the opportunity to engage in global citizenship by utilizing my engineering skills. I choose to work on a specific problem area in clean water. One of the larger contributors to the global potable water scarcity is heavy metal poisoning. My research aimed to prevent heavy metal poisoning in drinking water using a tabletop low-energy distillation device. When forming design requirements for the device I had to consider cultural and infrastructural differences between my home of Ireland and the countries where the device would be deployed. I spoke to a number of international non-profits and NGOs who helped me contextualize the problem space and gave me great advice. Working on a global problem such as this has given me the opportunity to practice global citizenship and allowed me to further my leadership development.

The LIA project also allowed me to develop my ethical leadership framework as well as to engage as a global citizen. I worked with the Stanford Existential Risks Initiative helping to run a research fellowship for X-Risk researchers (see my other blog for more on X-Risk). Throughout the fellowship, I was privileged to work with a diverse cohort of researchers from an array of different nations. Through our discussions on x-risk, I was able to discuss and debate the underlying ethics of the current government policies tackling existential risk. I was also able to carry my further developed ethical framework, from the LEAD sessions to my day-to-day decision-making, throughout the course of the fellowship.

The program structure over the last two years has allowed me to consider ethics differently and apply it more to my day-to-day life. The LEAD sessions and the discussions that followed helped shape this new worldview by educating me on the principles of ethics and prompting me to discuss moral dilemmas. In particular, the LEAD 6 in partnership with the London Business School was incredibly thought-provoking, outlining some great case studies and examples.

This program has accelerated my development as both an ethical leader and a global citizen. I would like to extend my thanks to the Foundation for giving me this opportunity. I am grateful to my supervisor Dr Seamus O'Shaugnessy and Technical Officer of the Fluids and Heat transfer Lab - Gerry Byrne. Furthermore, I am thankful to SERI and Sawyer Bernath for their help in conducting my LIA project. I would like to thank everyone in Trinity Employability for the time they put into organizing this program and for their unfailing support.