Head of Societal Engagement

Email: helena.fitzgerald@tudublin.ie

Tel: +353 1 2208574

Helena works across TU Dublin's Sustainability and Partnerships Teams to grow engagement across the university's education, research and operations activities. She leads a team who work to develop new solutions and services that enable impactful collaboration by the university community, with an objective to create positive societal impact in the Greater Dublin Region.

Passionate about enabling individual and collective creativity, and in engaging civil society in the full lifecycle of innovation, Helena has extensive experience of community-led open innovation processes and of Living Lab initiation. Prior to this role she contributed as an Assistant Lecturer to the Master of Architecture programme at TU Dublin's School of Architecture, Building & Environment, and while working as a Research Fellow on Horizon 2020 research at the University of Limerick, led the development of an approach to engaging cross-sectoral stakeholders in the climate-neutral transition that can operate at a city scale.

A registered architect (MRIAI), Helena has worked in the UK, Ireland and France leading project teams in the design and construction of innovative workspaces and ultra-low energy homes. Her research Caring for Place, Constructing Common Worlds was commended in the 2019 RIAI Architecture Awards. She was the recipient of a 2021 Arts Council Architecture Bursary Award, and her installation A Space for Making Good Decisions About Place, featured in the 2022 program at VISUAL, one of Ireland’s leading contemporary art spaces.