DCU President’s Awards for Professional Staff 2025 announced
The President’s Professional Staff Recognition Awards 2025 have taken place today (Wednesday 7 May) at a ceremony held on Dublin City University’s All Hallows campus.
The awards aim to recognise and celebrate individuals and teams who, in their daily work, consistently perform to excellent standards thus making outstanding contributions to DCU and its community and who, over a sustained period of time, have a major positive impact on the university community.
The award recipients are listed below, along with a quote from their nominations.
Individual Staff Award for Outstanding Contribution: Paula Murray, Director of Placement
Paula has exemplified exceptional dedication, visionary leadership, and a steadfast commitment to the values that define DCU. As a leader, Paula demonstrated exceptional analytical and decision-making skills, effectively guiding the team through complex challenges. Paula has the ability to mobilise resources and has led to measurable improvements in operational efficiency and academic excellence. Paula embodies DCU's commitment to excellence, collaboration, and innovation and fosters a culture where every team member feels valued and empowered.
Individual Staff Award for Living the DCU Culture and Values: Mary Behan, Programme Administrator, DCU Institute of Education
Mary is an outstanding individual who embodies warmth, professionalism and an unwavering can-do attitude. No matter the challenge, Mary approaches every situation with a problem-solving mindset, ensuring that nothing is ever too much trouble. Whether working with colleagues or students, Mary demonstrates an innate ability to make everyone feel heard and valued. Mary is not only efficient and highly competent, but also is a joy to work with and brings positivity and fun while maintaining the highest level of professionalism.
Individual Staff Award for Leadership: Darragh Ó Héiligh, Systems Architect, Digital Technology Solutions
Darragh never settles for merely acceptable solutions; instead, Darragh strives for excellence, ensuring that every solution is both innovative and effective. Darragh’s exceptional performance and unwavering commitment was visible during the implementation of our new student information system (SIS). Darragh has played an integral role in modernizing our operational framework, enhancing team collaboration and driving forward our strategic objectives through leadership. Darragh’s technical expertise, innovative thinking and unwavering commitment to excellence exemplifies collaboration and leadership within the organization.
Team Award for Outstanding Contribution: Faculty Office Colleagues in all five faculties
The Faculty Office teams involved in implementing SIS have shown exceptional leadership and contribution. They delivered not only their own part in an exceptionally demanding but strategically vital transformation agenda, but also set a 'will-do' tone for others and collaborated exceptionally effectively with one another and with the SIS team. The teams have consistently performed to excellent standards and have made outstanding contributions to DCU over a sustained period of time that has already had, and will continue to have a major positive impact on the university community, our organisational resilience and our strategy.
Team Award for Living the DCU Culture and Values: Seanad Electoral Register Project Team (Eimear Hester, Mary McKiernan, Killian Lyons)
The Seanad Electoral Project Team team demonstrated living the DCU culture and values by delivering exceptional work in implementing the requirements of the Seanad Electoral (University Members) Amendment Act 2024. Given the short lead time for implementation, the team faced a high-stakes, time-sensitive initiative with over 110,000 graduates now eligible to register to vote in upcoming Seanad elections. The team designed stringent processes to ensure accuracy, working with a range of records from handwritten graduation rolls to recent electronic graduation data. The project directly contributes to a more inclusive electoral process, ensuring DCU graduates are aware of their new right to vote and empowering them to participate in the democratic election process.