IRDR Alumni Dinner

Reflecting the growing body of IRDR graduates, the Institute held its second annual Alumni Dinner in November.

The event was attended by a number of IRDR members, associates and returning scholars, as well as current staff and students.

The event provided an opportunity for IRDR members to reconnect with fellow students and staff, and catch up on all the exciting developments taking place at the Institute. The dinner was organized as a round-table discussion, with Linda O'Halloran (UCL alumnus and current IRDR Executive Board member) leading the conversation with her experiences of setting up and running the NGO Thinking Development, which contributed to the recovery process for the 2010 earthquake in Haiti by building a disaster-resilient school for girls. Dinner guests engaged in an open and frank discussion about the issues raised by Linda, reflecting critically on the intellectual and practical challenges of working in the fields of disaster risk reduction and humanitarian engagement.

The occasion was also used to hand out awards to IRDR Masters prizewinners for 2014-15. The joint winners for the Best Dissertation Prize were Sophie Donoghue and Daniel Peel, with the award for Overall Excellence in the Masters Programme going to Sophie Donoghue and Angus Naylor. It was a pleasure to host our IRDR alumni on campus again, and we look forward to welcoming more of you next year! 

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