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CONTENTS Provost’s Welcome 3 Five Widely Translated Books by Alumni 18 COVID-19 Insights from Asia 4 A Gap in the Clouds 19 Trinity Growing Globally 6 From Trinity to China - Richard Barrett 20 Meet Yvonne Le Bas 8 Colonial Past Project 22 Unravelled - a new drama presented by GBHI 9 An Ghaeilge i Gcoláiste na Trίonóide 23 Trinity's International Welcome Programme 10 Trinity Remembers Roz Zuger 24 One-to-one with Nicole Mannion 11 Trinity USA Open Week 25 One family, 150 Years of Trinity History 12 Chapter News 26 Meet David and Michael Yeo 14 Future Cities 28 Trinity's Exceptional Olympic Sportspeople 16 Trinity Business Alumni 30
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PROVOST’S WELCOME his Patrick’s Day, like last Patrick’s Day, I’ll be spending in Number 1, Grafton Street, also known as the Provost’s House. It’s over a year since I last took a flight. I think this is the longest period I’ve spent uninterruptedly in Ireland since I was a schoolboy, and compared to my other years as Provost, it’s like night and day. International travel has been a defining feature of my provostship: our mission has been to massively-increase the number of relationships Trinity has around the world – relationships with individuals who come to study in Trinity and become alumni; relationships with other universities to create joint degree programmes and research collaborations; relationships with industry partners and philanthropic foundations (see feature Trinity’s Growing Globally). This mission is to place Trinity at the heart of global education and research. I never minded the travel – I love experiencing different places and cultures. 2019 was a typical year: I was in London in February checking out innovation districts as models for what we want to do in Grand Canal Dock; in San Francisco in June celebrating the Global Brain Health Institute (jointly run by Trinity and the University of California, San Francisco). I spent July touring Morocco, Tanzania, Kenya and South Africa, signing MOUs with universities, and early December in Thailand, strengthening our academic links. And throughout I was launching our philanthropic campaign, Inspiring Generations, in four cities, Paris, London, New York and San Francisco. Everywhere I went I met with alumni, the highlight of every trip. The VicePresident for Global Relations, Professor Juliette Hussey, and her team were in many other locations worldwide. It’s incredibly moving and uplifting to go into a room in Brussels, Cape Town, Perth, Singapore, Tokyo, Manchester – anywhere and everywhere - and find it full of Trinity graduates, who want to hear what’s going on back in their alma mater, and fill me in on what’s happening with them. No-one will give you the inside track to a city like a Trinity graduate who works there – we profile some of our fascinating graduates in this edition. I don’t think anything can replace these in-person encounters but if the pandemic has taught us anything it’s that we can indeed connect meaningfully online, and this is key to building global community while meeting our responsibilities towards sustainable living. Throughout the year, alumni donated to online calls for support, volunteered and mentored students through digital platforms, and participated in webinars and other virtual events. Just as ‘blended learning’ - mix of in-person and online - is the ‘best of both worlds’ when it comes to educating students, so ‘blended engagement’ is proving the best, and most ecologically responsible, way to stay in touch with 130,000 alumni in 140 countries. We’re excited about the possibilities. We’ve redesigned this ezine, for instance, to make it bigger, better, brighter and this is our first ever dedicated internationally themed ezine. I hope you enjoy it. For those, like me, missing that immersion in other cultures, check out A Gap in the Clouds for a beautiful sojourn in medieval Japan. As ever, poetry and imagery give us ‘a window into other lives and speak directly to the human experience’. Patrick Prendergast, BA, BAI (1987), PhD, ScD
