Eeva Leinonen

Eeva Kaarina Leinonen (; born 1958; sometimes Eeva Kaarina Leinonen-Davies) is a Finnish educator and educational administrator. Since 1 October 2021, she has been president of Maynooth University in Ireland, having previously headed Murdoch University in Australia.

An academic leader and professor of many years standing in a number of third level institutions, Leinonen works in the areas of linguistics, especially clinical linguistics and pragmatics, and psychology, with research interests including aspects of autistic spectrum disorders, in addition to elements of higher education management and learning.

Early life and education Leinonen was born in 1958 in Oulu, Finland, one of three children of working-class parents. She and her brothers grew up and attended school there, though she did take a year in Michigan as an exchange student. by the 2000s, Leinonen was Professor of Psycholinguistics at what had become in 1992 the University of Hertfordshire; she was also appointed as deputy vice-chancellor there. For part of the same period, she was a private docent - a scholar with the equivalent of two doctoral theses - at the University of Oulu in Finland, working with clinical linguistics. In September 2009, after almost 20 years at Hertfordshire, and deputy chairperson of the Academic Board.

In 2012, Leinonen moved to Australia, going directly from King's to the wide campus of the University of Wollongong in New South Wales, 80 km from Sydney, where she took up a role as deputy vice-chancellor, with overall responsibility for education. she moved to become vice-chancellor, the chief officer, of Murdoch University in Perth, Western Australia, held later in the year. In 2018, her salary, for a university of around 23,000 students, 750 academics and 999 general staff was noted in the press as, at 755,000 Australian dollars, higher than that of Australia’s Prime Minister; the salary rose to 930,000 AUD by 2019, even as staff cuts (the main union feared at least 200 job losses) and a 25 million AUD salary saving were sought.

The university's chancellor, its ceremonial chairperson, praised Leinonen's work when he announced her plans to move to Ireland, but there were also some controversies during her term, most notably around the cessation of most science, technology and mathematics studies as separate degrees in an initiative called "STEM Everywhere", a long-term major increase in online lecturing beyond Covid provisions and the termination of courses in Bahasa Indonesian and other topics.

Maynooth University Leinonen was announced on International Women's Day, in March 2021, as the successor to Philip Nolan as president of Maynooth University, County Kildare, Ireland. She served at Murdoch University for another six months, taking office at Maynooth on 1 October 2021. She became the first female leader of the university, and the third woman to take the full leadership role of an Irish university in the span of under 15 months - an interim appointment at the University of Limerick mid-2020 was followed by the selection of Maggie Cusack to lead the newly-formed Munster Technological University from 1 January 2021, the election of Linda Doyle at Trinity College Dublin, effective 1 August - and Leinonen's commencement was followed a week later by the full appointment of Kerstin Mey as head of the University of Limerick.

Recognition Leinonen was awarded an honorary degree, D.Sc. (H.C.), for her services to education, by one of her almae matres, Aston University, in 2018.

Publications Leinonen has co-authored two books, and contributed articles to others, as well as to journals. The books are: Smith, Benita R. and Leinonen, Eeva K. / Clinical Pragmatics: Unravelling the Complexities of Communicative Failure / UK: Nelson Thornes, 1991 Leinonen, Eeva; Letts, Carolyn; Smith, Benita Rae / Children's pragmatic communication difficulties / UK: London and US: Philadelphia, 2000

Personal life Leinonen has a daughter, an anthropologist, who lives and works in London. Her husband is Australian, and he and she moved to Australia partly to be with his aging parents. With both her daughter and his two children based in the UK, they were visiting there regularly and she stated that one reason for moving to Ireland was to be nearer all three children, as Australia was no longer a single flight away.