Westport native wins Smarter Travel Campus Award

DR. Jenny O’Connor, a lecturer in Waterford Institute of Technology, has won a Lecturer Award at the 2019 Smarter Travel Campus Awards ceremony.

Lecturers were awarded for bringing projects to promote smarter modes of transport into their graded coursework.

Dr. O’Connor, originally from Westport, now lives in Dunmore East with her husband, Rob, and four children. She has been lecturing in WIT for the past 11 years and won the award in the Health and Event Management category.

“It is wonderful to see WIT represented among so many other institutes and universities at the Campus Awards,” said Dr. O'Connor, “and it is great for the students to be able to work on something throughout the semester that has the potential to gain national recognition.

“Last year, we won the radio ad category but this year, the standard has risen across the board so both Colm Dunphy and I are delighted that our students were nominated this year.”

“It has also made them realise that their creativity has the potential to make a difference to the way that people commute to college. Hopefully the Smarter Travel Campus initiative will continue to grow from strength to strength, and I am delighted that WIT has been able to get involved."

Also nominated for his work in bringing Smarter Travel initiatives into his coursework was Colm Dunphy of WIT, whose students in the Department of Computing and Maths were nominated for a Campus Award for their radio ads. Health promotion students (taught by Dr. O'Connor) produced radio ads, videos and posters and students in all three groups were nominated in these categories.