Deirdre Ahern

Professor Deirdre Ahern FTCD is Professor in Law and Director of the Tech, Law & Society Research Group at the School of Law Trinity College Dublin. She is a collaborator in the ADAPT Centre and a Fellow of the Information Society Law Centre at the University of Milan. Deirdre has particular expertise around ethics, policy and regulation for new technologies including AI and quantum technologies and regularly works across disciplines including with physicists, computer scientists and ethicists. Her sustained body of work on regulatory sandboxes for regulators and innovators as a two way learning tool has shaped the field and been used to brief the European Parliament. A key strand of Professor Ahern’s research agenda engages with anticipatory governance tools that can be used by states to engage with, learn from and respond to early stage science and technology developments including strategic foresight activities, policy labs and mission-based challenges.

Professor Ahern brings a wealth of policy and advisory experience to the table. She is advising government as a member of Ireland’s AI Advisory Council. As a member of Ethical, Political, Legal and Philosophical Studies committee of the Royal Irish Academy she has led out on public discourse around governing AI. Deirdre is leading multidisciplinary research work focused on the emerging significance of quantum technologies and is a member of Europol’s Quantum Safe Financial Forum. An advisor to the European Commission on its work programme, she has previously worked in the private sector as a lawyer and as a principal officer in the Law Reform Commission.