Leo J. Enright

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Leo J. Enright (b. March 18, 1955) is an Irish radio broadcaster and news reporter. He is currently Chairman of the Irish Government's science awareness programme,"Discover Science and Engineering". He is a member of the Board of Governors of the School of Cosmic Physicsat the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. Leo Enright was born in London, but considers Dublin his home town. He was educated at St. Fintan's High School, Sutton and University College Dublin. As a Fellow of the World Press Institute, he studied American history, economics and culture at Macalester College, in St. Paul, Minnesota.

[edit] Career

Most of Enright's career has been spent in public service broadcasting. He has been a regular presenter of news and analysis programmes on Radio Telefís Éireann since the 1970s. He was the first Head of News at Radio 2, Ireland's national music and talk station, after which he spent much of the 1980s as London Correspondent for the Irish national broadcaster. During the 1990s he was the BBC's man in Dublin. He has undertaken lengthy assignments in the Middle East, Iran and Africa and has been accredited to the United States White House under every administration since President Gerald Ford. He has a son called Robert and currently resides in the Temple Bar area of Dublin.

[edit] Major achievements

In 1978, Enright won a Jacob's Award for his report on Dublin delinquents broadcast on RTÉ Radio's This Week programme.^[1]

He is a Science Writing Fellow of the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Ma., where he studied microbial diversity.

In 2000, with support from NASA's Astrobiology Institute, he completed the renowned Workshop on Molecular Evolution at the Josephine Bay Paul Center for Comparative Molecular Biology and Evolution.

Starting as a schoolboy space commentator in the 1960s Leo Enright has broadcast live commentaries on every major space event since the first Moon landing. He was elected Fellow of the British Interplanetary Society in 1978.

In 2003, Leo Enright was appointed Chairman of the Irish Government’s "Discover Science and Engineering", a national programme to co-ordinate public and private promotion of engineering and science throughout Irish society.

In 2008 he shared in a Thea Award for "outstanding quality" for his work as science advisor on "Cosmos at the Castle", an interactive exhibition at Blackrock Castle Observatory exploring extreme life on earth and in space. ^[2] The award was presented by the Themed Entertainment Association, the worldwide association of designers and producers of themed experiences such as museums, zoos and theme parks.