Membership Team

Faculty Profiles: Membership Team

Name: Katie O'Brien
Post: Memberships Co-ordinator (Acting Head of Enrolment & Zen Studies)
Contact details: members@idwcon.org
Qualifications: B.F. M.S. D.S.
Research interests: Spreadsheet Divination, Disapparition
Publications: “Distant Corridors and Remote Bathrooms: How to get Alone Time at Busy Conventions” Introverts Monthly, October 2015; “Leveraging Your Soothing Voice to Achieve Your Life Goals” ASMR Publications, June 2014; “The Thrilling Application of =queery in Large Sheets” Spreadsheet Enthusiasts, April 2010
Working Groups: Fire Dousing Squad

Academic Philosophy:
Having started studying Discworld when she was too young to understand any of the innuendo, Katie returned to her studies again in adulthood by enrolling in the 2009 Irish branch of the Unseen University under the tutelage of the Acting Archchancellor and Acting Librarian. Katie regards agreeing to be an acting faculty member to be the best decision she has ever made while drunk, without exception.

Name: Fergal MacCarthaigh
Post: Memberships Co-Ordinator (Acting Head of Pun-ative Measures & Head Desk Manoeuvres)
(Dis)Qualifications: B. A. lmost. (Procrastination as Artform), M.A. Sc (Speaking the Speech)
Research interests: Ludo-Sociological Interactions (Games with Friends), Pan Narrans and Imagined Realities (Humans and Stories! All of them!), Inter-temporal Culinary Research (Brunch)
Publications: “Theatrics over Synonyms - Plays on Words” Meaning Meaning 2009; “Plague Aims - Turns for Daze” Say Allowed 2015; “Dissecting Fairies and Killing Jokes” Explaining Jokes 2016
Working Groups: Proper Gander Squad: All’s well, nothing’s on - Fire Dept.

Academic Philosophy:
Afflicted with a love of convergences, Fergal voluntells himself to help out. Voluntell: a strange form of being voluntold, but not by other people. (It is a pity there is not a better word for this, but there has never been a need for one in the past.) When a branch of the Unseen University opened in Ireland in 2009, he posed as a member of the junior faculty and proceeded to “Go For” things. Since then, this masquerade has been so successful that he has fallen into "Siobhán and Co" and taken part in the actual Maskerade. In 2015, claiming to have been promoted to senior acting faculty, they staged their most ambitious production in which they pretended to host a convergence. This production was so successful that many people believe one actually took place. Surrounded by such inspiring people he avoids imposter syndrome by, in fact, being an imposter.