Professor Ciara Smyth is an established expert in the field of refugee and immigration law at the international, regional and domestic levels, with a particular focus on EU asylum law. She has published in many leading international journals, including the Common Market Law Review, the European Law Journal, the Human Rights Law Review, the International Journal of Refugee Law, the European Journal of Migration and Law and the Journal of Refugee Studies. Her book, European Asylum Law and the Rights of the Child (Routledge, 2014), explores the extent to which the European regional system of refugee protection is consistent with the rights of the child.

Before joining University of Galway, Ciara worked for a number of non‐governmental and intergovernmental organisations in Ireland and abroad, including the Irish Commission for Prisoners Overseas and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. She continues to be involved in supporting civil society organisations working in the asylum and immigration sphere at local and national levels, such as the Immigrant Council of Ireland, the Irish Refugee Council and Galway City Partnership’s Bridge Project. Ciara has also worked with the State on asylum reform and was the only academic member of the government‐appointed McMahon Working Group on Direct Provision. She is widely recognised as the leading academic voice in Irish media discussions on asylum and immigration, bringing facts and balance to an often polarised debate.

Ciara holds a PhD from Leiden University in the Netherlands, for which she was awarded a Max Van Der Stoel Human Rights Award in 2013; an LL.M in Human Rights (with distinction) from Queen’s University Belfast; and an LL.B and B.A. from University of Galway. She is Programme Director of the LL.M in International Migration and Refugee Law and Policy at the Irish Centre for Human Rights, which began in September 2019. She was co‐founder of the University of Galway Inclusive Centenaries Scholarship, the forerunner to the current University of Sanctuary Scholarship, in which she remains heavily involved. Ciara received a President’s Award for Teaching Excellence in 2018 and a President’s Award for Research Excellence (Research Supervision) in 2024.