Meet the Team

Clara is an Engagement Programme Lead within the Academy of the Near Future. She is leading a programme that engages primary school students with the potential of digital connectivity. Her background is in social science and digital transformation. Clara brings a strong passion to empower young people to use technology to make a difference in their communities

Mariana is an Engagement Programme Lead within the Academy of the Near Future. She is working in the project 'Building Leaders, Crafting Communities' using Minecraft as a tool to increase awareness and understanding of smart and sustainable cities. She has a BSc in Biotechnology Engineering and a MSc in Biotechnology and Business. Mariana is passionate about STEM, leadership and technology, aiming to transform student's perception of technology and STEM fields in her community

Professor Dan Kilper is the Director of the CONNECT Centre, and Principal Investigator. He is Professor of Future Communication Networks in the School of Engineering in Trinity College Dublin. Professor Kilper received his PhD in physics from the University of Michigan in 1996. From 2000 to 2013, he was a member of the technical staff at Bell Labs.  He is a senior member of IEEE, a topical area editor for the IEEE Transactions on Green Communications and Networking (TGCN) and chairs the optics working group in the IEEE International Network Generations Roadmap. He was recognised as a 2019 NIST Communications Technology Lab Innovator and holds eleven issued patents and authored six book chapters and more than one hundred sixty-seven peer-reviewed publications. His research is aimed at solving fundamental and real-world problems in communication networks in order to create a faster, more affordable, and energy efficient Internet, addressing interdisciplinary challenges for smart cities, sustainability, and digital equity. Professor Kilper comes to CONNECT from the University of Arizona where he held a research professorship in the College of Optical Sciences, and a joint appointment in Electrical and Computer Engineering. He also holds an adjunct faculty position in the Data Science Institute at Columbia University, where he is a co-PI on the COSMOS advanced wireless testbed. He was lead PI on the founding project of SFI’s US-Ireland Research and Development Partnership and has served in leadership positions in multiple international university-industry research centres including participating in CONNECT’s precursor, CTVR, while he was at Bell Labs.