Natalie Harrower

Dr. Natalie Harrower is the Director of the Digital Repository of Ireland, located at the Royal Irish Academy. 

Dr. Harrower is involved in a number of national and international activities that support and promote digital preservation, particularly as an aspect of digital cultural heritage, data sharing and reuse, and Open Science practices. Recently, Dr. Harrower was appointed to the European Commission's high level expert group on FAIR data implementation. She is a member of Ireland's National Archives Advisory Committee (NAAC), and a member of the OECD high level expert group on Business Models for Data Repositories. She is on the Governing Board for the Research Data Alliance's H2020-funded EU support activities, she is an expert reviewer for the European Commission, and she chairs the ALLEA E-Humanities Working Group. Harrower has worked to build DRI’s community profile and partnerships, and has been instrumental in securing grants for DRI from philanthropists (Atlantic Philanthropies), European funders (FP7, H2020), and Irish funders (Department Education and Skills, Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltactt, Irish Research Council, SFI, Enterprise Ireland). She is the PI for a number of leveraged projects for DRI, including: the Atlantic Philanthropies Archives Project, a Horizon 2020 grant for Research Data Alliance Europe activities, the multiple award-winning Inspiring Ireland (www.inspiring-ireland.ie), and the Royal Irish Academy’s contributions to the collaborative DAH PhD programme. In 2014 Dr. Harrower established the international conference series DPASSH: Digital Preservation for the Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities, and chaired its inaugural conference in June 2015. Previously, she was the DRI's Manager of Education and Outreach, where she initiated and delivered a broad education and training programme in digital preservation and related areas -- including digital humanities, digital archiving, digital curation, and linked data.

Prior to her appointment at the DRI, Dr. Harrower was a theatre and film scholar, specialising in Irish identity, politics, and historiography, as seen through the critical lens of contemporary Irish theatre and film. Before moving to Ireland to take up an appointment at Trinity College Dublin on an IRCHSS-funded Irish theatre research project, she was an Assistant Professor of Drama at Queen’s University (Canada). Prior to her appointment at Queen’s, she was a lecturer in theatre, film, and Celtic Studies at the University of Toronto. Dr. Harrower received her PhD in Drama from the University of Toronto and her MA in Political Science from York University. 

Recent Activities:

• Member, FAIR-data high level expert group, European Commission (2018-)
• Member, National Archives Advisory Council (NAAC) 2017-2022
• Judge, International Digital Preservation Awards, 2018
• Member, Programme Committee, iPres2019
• Member, National Open Research Forum (NORF), Ireland
• Member, OECD Global Science Forum Expert Group on Business Models for Sustainable Data Repositories
• Member, E-RIHS Ireland Advisory Board (European Research Infrastructure for Heritage Science)
• Principal Investigator, Atlantic Philanthropies Archives Project at the DRI
• Programme Committee, ICSU workshop on Open Data, 2018
• Chair, ALLEA E-Humanities Working Group (2016-)
• Programme Committee, PASIG 2017, Oxford
• Member, Digital Preservation Coalition Advocacy and Communication Committee
• Organising Committee Member, Open Repositories 2016
• Steering Committee, DARIAH Ireland
• Principal Investigator, Inspiring Ireland 1916 and Frongoch and 1916
• Principal Investigator, RIA, DAH PhD Programme (PRTLI Cycle 5)
• Project Manager at DRI for the Social Repository of Ireland (SFI TIDA)
• Co-Chair, Minitrack on Citizen Journalism and Social Media Archiving, 48th Annual HICSS conference (Jan 2015)
• Co-founder and Organising Committee Member for Discover Research Dublin, Dublin's first contribution to European Researchers Night (2013)