A LIMERICK professor has become the first Irish person to be elected president of international ICT organisation IFIP (the International Federation for Information Processing), which has more than 500,000 members.
Professor Mike Hinchey, director of Lero – the Irish Software Research Centre headquartered at the University of Limerick – will also retain his role there.
His election as the 18th President of IFIP was made at its General Assembly in Daejeon, Korea this week.
Prof Hinchey will serve as president-elect until the next General Assembly in Costa Rica in September 2016, after which he will take on a three-year term as President.
Established under the auspices of UNESCO in 1960, IFIP is the global professional federation of associations for people working in ICT (Information & Communications Technologies) and Sciences.
It represents ICT professional associations from more than 50 countries and regions, fostering the distribution of research and knowledge to academics and industry practitioners.
Prof Hinchey is also a Professor of Software Engineering at UL, and was previously director of the Software Engineering Laboratory at NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland.
The Limerick man remains as a consultant to NASA; his work has been implemented in various space projects and will be incorporated in future missions.
