Professor Fiona Kearney is the founding Director of the Glucksman Gallery, an award-winning contemporary art museum on the campus of University College Cork. In this position she has curated numerous exhibitions of Irish and international art with a particular emphasis on how contemporary art practice relates to research directions within academic contexts. Fiona received a double first class honours in French and Philosophy from University College Cork and went on to graduate first in her class at Trinity College Dublin with an M.Phil in Text & Image studies. Throughout her career, Fiona has received several distinguished awards including the designation of college scholar by UCC, the NUI Prix d'Honneur from the French Government, and a UCC President’s Award for Research on Innovative Forms of Teaching. In 2006, she was awarded the Jerome Hynes Fellowship on the Clore Leadership Programme and in 2008, was selected to participate in the Getty Museum Leadership Institute in LA. In 2009, she was appointed as a member of the Arts Council of Ireland for a five year term, where she chaired the Policy & Strategy Committee.Fiona is a trained assessor on the Museum Standards Programme of Ireland. She has proudly served as a board member of the Irish Architecture Foundation and VISUAL centre for contemporary art, and currently sits on the boards of Cork Chamber and Cork Midsummer, and was appointed in 2023 to the advisory council of the Paul Mellon Centre. She is a member of the Irish Museums Association, ICOM, IKT and AICA.