1st—5th October 2024
Administrator / Artists’ Liaison
Curator & Producer
Technical Assistant
Digital Comms Officer
Administrator / Artists’ Liaison
Elma has an experienced background in administration and has a Diploma in Computer and Secretarial Studies. Elma has coordinated and managed a number of Percent for Art Schemes for both the private and public sectors, and in her role liaises with the NSF Board, artists and external agencies, including Governmental departments. A number of years ago, Elma was also appointed artists’ liaison at the NSF, where she assists artists’ with non-technical issues.
Curator & Producer
Dobz O’Brien is curator and producer at the NSF. He is also an artist and independent curator and the founding member of art group Art/ not art. Focused on the commissioning of off-site artworks he has curated and produced a wide range of projects across a broad spectrum of mediums, sites and locations. As NSF Programme Manager he has worked with international artists SuperFlex; Phil Collins; Maddie Leach; Bikvanderpol; Surasi Kusolwong; as well as Irish artists; Doireann O’Malley, Jesse Presley Jones, Anthony Haughey, Elaine Hoey. He was a co-curator of the Cork Caucus in 2005 with Charles Esche, Annie Fletcher and Fergal Gaynor. He has exhibited both nationally and internationally. At Via Farini, Milan and at “Big Social Game” Torino Biennale in Italy; Rraum02 and Gasthof in Frankfurt as part of Manifesta 4 and all across Ireland.
Technical Assistant
John has lived and worked in America, Germany and Mexico. He studied sculpture and graphic design in California and went on to do several apprenticeships including fabrication applied to sculpture and furniture manufacture, glassblowing, carpentry, electrics and precision engineering. He returned to college after moving to Ireland to study cabinetmaking and furniture restoration. John has worked in many fields, and when he’s not at the NSF he works as a maker and installer for several artists, galleries and museums nationally and internationally as well as from his studio in Cork. The largest projects he has worked on to-date, was Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s ‘The Umbrellas’ and the restoration of Sauerburg Castle, a UNESCO world heritage site in Germany.
Digital Comms Officer
Stephanie has a background in both fine art and graphic design, studying at LSAD TUS and MTU respectively. As a resident artist in Camden Palace Hotel she began volunteering in the office; helping organize exhibitions and run events in the building over the course of five years. She joined Cork Community Art Link in 2018 as an arts administrator, assisting with a variety of parades, workshops and conferences. While in charge of digital marketing for CCAL she was responsible for developing and growing the centre’s online presence.
Elected 2014 to date
Sarah Moran BA MRUP MIPI graduated from University College Cork in 1998 with a Bachelor of Arts and qualified as a town planner at University College Dublin in 2000. She has worked for An Bord Pleanála since 2006 and is now a Senior Planning Inspector. Prior to her time at the Board, she worked as a planner with Cork City Council, Cork County Council and Dublin City Council. Sarah works with the Cork branch of the Irish Planning Institute (IPI) and the IPI National Council to forward the Institute’s mission to advance planning by serving, improving and promoting the planning profession for the benefit of the community and the common good. Sarah is also chairperson of the NSF.
Elected 2015 to date
Niall Smith has a lifelong interest in understanding the universe we live in. He received a PhD in astrophysics from UCD in 1990 and along with others established the science and visitor centre at Blackrock Castle Observatory (www.bco.ie) in Cork in 2007 in a partnership between Cork Institute of Technology and Cork City Council. The centre celebrates the full spectrum of human inquiry from the perspectives of science, art, humanities and performance, and is made possible by the innovation, creativity and hard work of a small and highly dedicated team. In 2017 Niall was the Local Lead for the International Space University Space Studies Programme which was the largest space conference held in Ireland to date. He is also the Head of Research at Munster Technological University, a job which affords him the opportunity to work across discipline boundaries. Niall remains an active researcher and was awarded Science Foundation Ireland’s Research Image of the Year Award in 2020 for work that examined the efficacy of masks using techniques borrowed from astrophysics.
Elected November 2020 to date
Ian is an Associate Partner with the professional services firm, EY, and is part of the Assurance team in the EY Cork office. He is a qualified accountant and is a fellow of Chartered Accountants Ireland with over twenty years’ experience working with EY, with a number of years spent in Dublin. With a finance and business background, he works with a wide portfolio of both global and local clients, across a variety of industry sectors. He is based and living in Cork.
Elected January 2021 to date
Marilyn is a visual artist and lecturer who works predominantly through durational social art practice. Since 2021 she is a Lecturer at Crawford College of Art and Design. She previously developed and co-directed a Master's in Social Art Practice (MA SPACE) at Limerick School of Art and Design. She has a PhD from University of Limerick and in 2021 she completed a continuing professional development course, Commissioning and Curating Contemporary Public Art by Valand Academy at the University of Gothenburg. She is a founding member of CONJUNCTION – a globally dispersed collective of 25 mid-career and established curators, artists, designers, educators, and public art practitioners. Link to website.
Elected 2014 to date
Sarah Moran BA MRUP MIPI graduated from University College Cork in 1998 with a Bachelor of Arts and qualified as a town planner at University College Dublin in 2000. She has worked for An Bord Pleanála since 2006 and is now a Senior Planning Inspector. Prior to her time at the Board, she worked as a planner with Cork City Council, Cork County Council and Dublin City Council. Sarah works with the Cork branch of the Irish Planning Institute (IPI) and the IPI National Council to forward the Institute’s mission to advance planning by serving, improving and promoting the planning profession for the benefit of the community and the common good. Sarah is also chairperson of the NSF.
Elected 2015 to date
Niall Smith has a lifelong interest in understanding the universe we live in. He received a PhD in astrophysics from UCD in 1990 and along with others established the science and visitor centre at Blackrock Castle Observatory (www.bco.ie) in Cork in 2007 in a partnership between Cork Institute of Technology and Cork City Council. The centre celebrates the full spectrum of human inquiry from the perspectives of science, art, humanities and performance, and is made possible by the innovation, creativity and hard work of a small and highly dedicated team. In 2017 Niall was the Local Lead for the International Space University Space Studies Programme which was the largest space conference held in Ireland to date. He is also the Head of Research at Munster Technological University, a job which affords him the opportunity to work across discipline boundaries. Niall remains an active researcher and was awarded Science Foundation Ireland’s Research Image of the Year Award in 2020 for work that examined the efficacy of masks using techniques borrowed from astrophysics.
Elected November 2020 to date
Ian is an Associate Partner with the professional services firm, EY, and is part of the Assurance team in the EY Cork office. He is a qualified accountant and is a fellow of Chartered Accountants Ireland with over twenty years’ experience working with EY, with a number of years spent in Dublin. With a finance and business background, he works with a wide portfolio of both global and local clients, across a variety of industry sectors. He is based and living in Cork.
Elected January 2021 to date
Marilyn is a visual artist and lecturer who works predominantly through durational social art practice. Since 2021 she is a Lecturer at Crawford College of Art and Design. She previously developed and co-directed a Master's in Social Art Practice (MA SPACE) at Limerick School of Art and Design. She has a PhD from University of Limerick and in 2021 she completed a continuing professional development course, Commissioning and Curating Contemporary Public Art by Valand Academy at the University of Gothenburg. She is a founding member of CONJUNCTION – a globally dispersed collective of 25 mid-career and established curators, artists, designers, educators, and public art practitioners. Link to website.