Dublin City University recently presented 2023 Alumni Awards to outstanding alumni, including General Secretary of Housing Europe Sorcha Edwards. The University also presented 2023 Alumni Awards to outstanding alumni Lucy Nugent (CEO Tallaght University Hospital) and Kevin Shortall (Principal of St. Aidan’s Community School in Tallaght). The DCU Alumni Awards honour alumni who, through their exceptional ability and leadership, have achieved excellence in their chosen fields of endeavour.
Sorcha Edwards, a Lucan native is General Secretary of Housing Europe, the European Federation of Public, Cooperative and Social Housing providers since 2014. After graduating with a degree in Languages from DCU Sorcha, continued her studies with postgraduate qualifications in Business and in European Studies at the University of Ulster and at the University of Leuven. Housing Europe’s members manage 25 million homes and deliver over 200,000 new homes and renovations annually. Under Sorcha’s leadership Housing Europe has become a point of reference for sustainable housing systems in Europe. It’s work coordinates the network for maximum impact in better regulation, better knowledge and better finance for housing in EU and International policy-making.
Lucy Nugent graduated from her Nursing Studies at DCU in 2003 and over the following decade she worked in a number of roles as a registered general and children’s nurse in the Children’s University Hospital Temple Street progressing to the role of Clinical & Patient Services Manager. She was made Chief Operations Officer at Tallaght University Hospital in 2014 before being appointed Deputy CEO in 2016 and then acceding to her current role in January 2019.
Kevin Shortall is principal of St. Aidan’s Community School, Tallaght and an innovator and pioneer in education. An early school leaver, he never believed then he would go to college or become a teacher. Four years later Kevin returned to do his leaving cert. and then completed what is now the B. Ed. and M. Ed. in DCU. In 2022 he became one of the founding developers of the SPOTLITE programme – Student Perspectives on Teaching and Learning in the Educational Space – a unique and groundbreaking model of student participation with the potential to transform education.
The 2023 Alumni Award recipients represent all five faculties of study at DCU (Business School, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Institute of Education, Faculty of Science and Health and Faculty of Engineering and Computing. The achievements of these eight exceptional graduates were celebrated at a special ceremony in The Helix on DCU’s Glasnevin campus.
DCU President Prof Dáire Keogh said I am delighted to present these awards to a special group of DCU alumni who have done exceptional things in diverse fields including Healthcare, Tech, Diversity, Housing, Business and Sport.” Our alumni are changemakers who consistently deliver on our University’s mission to ‘transform lives and societies’. In celebrating these great individuals we celebrate the impact of DCU’s more than 100,000 alumni worldwide.”
Ross Munnelly, Director of Alumni Relations at DCU, said “Our alumni continue to represent the strong values and high expectations of the university. Each awardee through their own contribution helps to make the world and society a better place for us all. We have seen this through their achievements to date, they are proven leaders and who continue to inspire the next generation of graduates at DCU.”
Pic credit: Kyran O’Brien / DCU Communications
