Trinity Professor Padraig Carmody, Head of the Geography department, has been elected to the Royal Academy for Overseas Sciences in Belgium.
Carmody was elected to the Academy on the basis of his research, which focuses on the political economy of globalization in Africa. Speaking to Trinity News, he announced that as a member, he hopes “to be able to build more academic links between Ireland and Belgium.”
The Academy is dedicated to the promotion of scientific research in overseas regions and to the dissemination of information about said areas. As a member of the Academy, Carmody plans to contribute to various scientific meetings, commissions, and working groups.
The Royal Academy for Overseas Sciences was founded in 1928 as the Royal Belgian Colonial Institute. At the time, its work was restricted to the Belgian Congo, which accounts for the Academy’s traditional association with research in Africa. In 1959, it was renamed to its current title, and in more recent years, the Academy has expanded its focus to include other regions.
Carmody holds a B.A. in Geography and History and M.Sc in Geography, both from Trinity. He also holds a Ph.D. in Geography from the University of Minnesota, where he held the distinction of being a MacArthur Scholar. Carmody was previously the editor of Irish Geography and the editor-in-chief of Geoforum, a peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes human geography research.
As well as being a lecturer in Development Geography at Trinity, Carmody has consulted for the Office of the President of South Africa and is currently a visiting professor at the University of Johannesburg.
Professor Carmody’s other accolades include membership in the Royal Irish Academy, which he was elected to in May of 2018, and the Kwadwo Konadu-Agyemang Distinguished Scholar Award in African Geography. Along with James Murphy, Carmody was the 2016 Royal Academy of Overseas Sciences Prize Winner for Technical Sciences.
