Brian MacCraith

Brian Dominic MacCraith (born Dundalk, 1957), is an Irish physicist who was the third president of Dublin City University (DCU) in Ireland. He joined DCU in 1986 and became president in July 2010, for a term of 10 years. After his term in office, he took up voluntary roles, including the chairs of Ireland's High-Level Task Force on COVID-19 Vaccination and Future of Media Commission.

Early life and education MacCraith was born in Dundalk, County Louth, Ireland, the son of two teachers, Brian and Caitlin MacCraith. He attended Ballinaclosha Primary School in County Armagh, Scoil Eoin Baiste in Dundalk, and later CBS Dundalk (now Coláiste Rís), from where he took his Leaving Certificate. His mother taught him for three years, and his father for one.

He graduated with an honours BSc in Physics from NUI Galway, where he also completed a M.Sc. and a Ph.D in Optical Spectroscopy of Laser Materials.

Career MacCraith worked for a time at Dundalk Institute of Technology, then in 1986 he joined the staff of DCU, teaching in the physics area, and establishing the university's Optical Sensors Laboratory. He pursued research in the areas of optical chemical sensors and biosensors, biomedical diagnostics, and nanobiophotonics, and he has published and developed intellectual property in his research areas. He later proposed the Biomedical Diagnostics Institute (BDI), and in 2005, this was launched as a Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) Research Centre, with the largest quantum of funding for a research project in the history of the Irish state,

MacCraith has also been a visiting scientist at the Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, D.C. He also emphasised the importance of Ireland's east-coast population corridor, and expressed hopes of building links between DCU and Dundalk IT, and County Louth in general, and in 2012, the two institutions concluded a cooperation agreement.

Starting with his inauguration address, MacCraith has spoken publicly about the needs of industry and business from the university sector and the funding needs of third level. He has also spoken on the question of STEM participation by female students.

National roles MacCraith chaired the Strategic Review of Medical Training and Career Structures, which led to the "MacCraith Report" (June 2014), and later the Review of STEM Education in the Irish School System (reported November 2016).

Publications MacCraith has published over 150 papers, and examples of peer-reviewed work include: "Novel polymer platform for enhanced biochip performance," Chem. Rev. 2008, 108, 2, pp. 400–422, with Burke, C.S. and McDonagh, C. "Novel hybrid sol-gel materials for smart sensor windows," Proc. SPIE 5826, Opto-Ireland 2005: Optical Sensing and Spectroscopy, with Guckian, A. et al.

Awards and recognition MacCraith is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and of SPIE, the international scientific organisation for optics and photonics.

In 2014, MacCraith was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Massachusetts, Lowell.

Personal life MacCraith is married to Catherine MacCraith, and they have a daughter, Aoife, and a son, Eoin.