Dr Paul O’Leary is the Head of Quality Promotion and Academic Policy Development and previously a full-time lecturer in the Department of Engineering Technology in the School of Engineering, lecturing in circuit theory, energy and communications. He served for more than 10 years as course leader on courses from Certificate to Masters level and has lectured on both undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.

Dr O'Leary is a member on the SETU Academic Council and a member of the Academic Council’s subcommittees on Academic Quality, Academic Planning, Teaching & Learning and Research, Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

He obtained a BE from UCD, an MEngSci in Digital Signal Processing also from UCD and a PhD from UCC (but based entirely as a EURATOM/Marie Curie Fellow at the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Italy) on laser diagnostics.

Before joining SETU, Dr O'Leary also worked at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, developing the solar wind direction detection system used on the RAPID Cluster and Geotail HEP-LD projects and testing on the Combined Release and Radiation Effects Satellite (CRRES) project. He also worked at the Applied Optoelectronics Centre (DIT), developing a powerline communications system and as a lecturer in the Dublin Institute of Technology.