Our Team

In addition to the Principal Investigator, the project team includes three Postdoctoral Researchers, a PhD Candidate, two part-time Research Assistants, and a part-time Research Administrator.

Principal Investigator

Ruth Boeker

Ruth Boeker is a Professor in the UCD School of Philosophy. She received her PhD from the University of St Andrews and held academic positions in the USA and Australia before moving to Dublin. She is an expert in Early Modern philosophy and has published widely on late 17th and 18th-Century British philosophy.

Postdoctoral Researcher

Suchana Datta

Suchana Datta is a Postdoctoral Researcher on the BMoral project and was previously associated with the ERC VICTEUR project. She completed her PhD in UCD at the Insight Centre for Data Analytics. Her research activities span information retrieval, machine learning, and cultural analytics.

Research Assistant

Silvia Di Girolamo

Silvia Di Girolamo contributes to the BMoral project by taking care of the transcription of unpublished manuscripts. She holds a Bachelor degree in Modern Philology from the University of Padua and a Master’s degree in Archives and Records Management from UCD.

Research Assistant

Seán Fenton Cooney

Seán Fenton Cooney is engaged in the digital humanities research of the BMoral project. He is currently pursuing a PhD in the Medical Humanities at Trinity College Dublin. Over the past two years, he has worked as a Research Assistant at UCD on projects conducted in collaboration with Justice for Magdalenes Research and the UCD School of Education.

Research Administrator

Paddi Leinster

Paddi brings extensive expertise in programme and project management, with particular experience in EU and ERC projects at both Trinity College Dublin and the Royal Irish Academy. Paddi holds PRINCE2 and PMP project management certifications, as well as a Master’s in Arts Policy from the University of Galway. Paddi works part-time on the project, one day a week.

PhD Researcher

Pietro Maria Lucantoni

Pietro Maria Lucantoni is a PhD Researcher on the BMoral project. He completed a Master’s degree in Philosophy at Sapienza University of Rome and wrote a thesis on Hume’s theory of personal identity. His PhD research focuses on the relationship between Hume and Catharine Macaulay, an outspoken critic of Hume who linked epistemological empiricism with an original theory of sympathy and moral realism.

Postdoctoral Researcher

James Mackey

James Mackey is a Postdoctoral Researcher on the BMoral project. He completed his PhD at the University of Western Ontario, writing his dissertation on the reception of Stoicism in 17th - century moral philosophy. His current research concerns extending this work to British philosophers such as John Norris and Mary Astell, as well as thinking more broadly about the reception of Ancient moral philosophies in the 18th century.