EPA Director General Wins 2016 UCD Distinguished Graduate Award
15th June 2016
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Director General Laura Burke has won the UCD Engineering Graduates Association (EGA) Distinguished Graduate Award for 2016.
This award recognises a UCD engineering graduate in active service who is making an outstanding contribution to Irish Society. This contribution can be in the fields of Public Policy Development or in Entrepreneurship, Manufacturing, Information Technology, Research, Innovation and Job Creation.
Laura Burke said “I am both honoured and delighted to receive this Distinguished Graduate Award. I have many happy memories of my time as an engineering student in UCD and the knowledge and experience I gained during that time has been enormously beneficial to me in my career to date. This award is also a recognition of the role of the Environmental Protection Agency in protecting and improving the environment as a valuable asset for the people of Ireland and the importance of a clean, protected environment for our health, our wellbeing and our quality of life”.
Laura Burke was appointed as Director General of the EPA in late 2011. In her role she has the responsibility to lead and strategically manage the EPA. She has been a Director of the EPA since 2004, initially serving as the Agency’s Director of Communications and Corporate Services and more recently as Director of the Office of Climate, Licensing, Research and Resource Use.
Laura is also the Chair to the Societal Challenge 5 (Climate Action, Environment, Resource Efficiency and Raw Materials) Advisory Committee for the European Union’s Research Programme, Horizon 2020. Prior to joining the EPA, she worked in the private sector. Laura is a chemical engineer of University College Dublin graduating in 1992 and holds an MSc in Management Practice from Trinity College, Dublin.
(Pictured L-R: PJ Rudden, UCD EGA President; Laura Burke, EPA Director General; and Professor David FitzPatrick, UCD Principal College of Engineering & Architecture and Dean of Engineering.)
