Linda Doyle has broken through Ireland’s academic glass ceiling. She is the first woman to be provost of the country’s top-ranked university, Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin.

Trinity’s provost is elected by faculty members and student representatives, not a board of trustees, as happens with American university presidents. The 431-year-old university has more than 21,000 students and almost 4,000 staff members.

Doyle is no stranger to Trinity. The IEEE senior member is an alum of its engineering program and has taught at the university since the mid-1990s. Prior to her appointment as provost, she was Trinity’s dean and vice president of research. Her own field is wireless communications.

“I immediately knew industry was the wrong place for me. The open-endedness of academia really appeals to me.”